


unconditional love

by Shipmaster777



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Non-Canon Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:55:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27578818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shipmaster777/pseuds/Shipmaster777
Summary: Perlia. This story is an AU. Percy has anger issues, Thalia has her own issues. They meet at a place that can help them. Will they find away to find comfort in each other and maybe just help each other find love.
Relationships: Bianca di Angelo/Zoë Nightshade, Calypso/Leo Valdez, Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Thalia Grace/Percy Jackson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Right. this is a Perlia story (Percy+Thalia) if you don’t like this type of story don’t read it. Great thanks. Also to confirm this is an AU, Percy and the rest are not Demigods or anything to do with Greek myth besides names. If your still interested in reading this. Then great, Thanks for sticking around.**

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**Percy’s PoV**

“Percy! Get up or you’re gonna be late!” My mum said as she came into my room opening my curtains. I opened my eyes and instantly squinted as the sun shown unto my face I rolled over hoping to get the sun out of my face and go back to sleep. I heard my mother sigh and I felt the quilt get pulled of my body.

“Ugh school is so not worth going through this five times a week!” I mutter trying to reach for the quilt and pull it back up to me. My mum sees this and picks up the quilt and throws it down the stairs. I sigh and sit up.

“I hate this!” I mutter reaching for my pants.

“Breakfast will be downstairs sweetie do try and hurry the bus will be here in ten minutes.” My mum says as she leaves so I can get changed. I quickly get changed and make a quick stop into the bathroom.

I take a quick piss, brush my teeth, wash my face and comb my hair, after finishing up in the bathroom I went down to the kitchen. My mum was making breakfast for the three of us.

“Morning Mum, morning Paul!” I say greeting them as I sit down. Paul smiles at me while mum puts a plate of blue pancakes infront of me. I thank her and dig into the pancakes she put in front of me.

“So Percy did you do your homework last night?” Paul asked as he started eating as well, mum sat down at her table as welland looked at me waiting for an answer. I roll my eyes a bit.

“Yeah of course I did!” I say getting defensive. Paul sighs and continues with his breakfast.

“Percy, we just want make sure you’re ok.” My mum says gently. I’ve had issues with school most of my life, the only thing keeping me in Goode longer then most schools is Paul. He’s the principle of Goode High school and thanks to him I haven’t been expelled yet. I’ve been going to this school for two years now which is about twenty months longer then most.

“Mum I’m fine, please just get of my back!” I say getting really sick of this conversation.

“Fine, fine! But if you get called into Pauls office again!….” my mother trails off not finishing the sentence, she obviously had a punishment in mind.

Instead of responding I just dug into my breakfast quickly I didn’t want to miss the bus. You’re probably wondering why I take the bus instead of going with Paul, the reason is simple, people don’t ignore you when you share a house with the principle.

I look out the window and see the bus pull up outside a house across the street. I quickly stuff a pancake in my mouth and grab my school bag and run out the door, I managed to reach the bus just before it closed it’s door.

I chewed my food quickly and swallowed as I picked the window seat. I place my bag on the seat next to me and put in my AirPods so I can listen to music for the duration of the trip.

Half way through the song I was listening to a pair of hand covered my eyes. I quickly pause my music with my phone and smile lightly.

“Guess who!?” I hear a voice say.

“Hannibal Lector?” I guess laugh. A hand get taken of my right eyes and it comes back down as a smack on the head.

“Oh Annabeth!” I say ‘realising’ who it was. She grabs her bag and plops on the floor under the isle seat then grabs mine and puts it next to hers.

“Whats up seaweed brain!?” She says smiling. Annabeth was a unique person, she was funny when she wants to be but she’s also the smartest person I know. She has beautiful grey eyes and long curly blond hair, she’s been my best friend for two years now, next to Grover of course.

Speaking of Grover. He walked into the bus careful not to hit anyone with his crutches. He had a leg issue since he was six making the bones in his legs weaker or something so he needed support to walk. He took Annabeths old seat behind me.

“So what’s up dudes!” He says placing his crutches on the floor and his school bag on the other seat next to him.

“Not much! I got the usual lecture of I should be trying harder and what not, pretty regular morning.” I say half heartedly. Honestly I do try to do well in school it’s the other kids that get in my way. I have had anger issues since I was like twelve combine that with my dyslexia and ADHDit makes it hard to stay concentrated on work 24/7. After awhile I gave up on trying to work with school when every time I do something good I still end up in detention for something else.

“Lucky! My dad wants me to help him with his trip around America thing this summer which means I won’t be able to go to that camp I wanted to go to this summer!” She says angrily. Annabeth has this dream of becoming an architect and rebuilding a village in a ruined run down town. She says she must first learn everything she can so she’s trying to get to this architecture summer camp.

“The only bad thing about that is that the trip is a history trip” Grover mutterd. Annabeths dad was a huge history geek so he leaned about ancient battles and reenacts them with little toys in his office.

“Yeah but it would be kind of cool to get away from your step-mom!” I say pointing out the good. She thinks for a few seconds.

“I suppose it would be nice to spend some alone time with him!” She says smiling at me a little. The bus stops at the school and we got off the bus. My school was huge. It had about twenty classrooms in it and had a huge gymnasium or as I call it hell, I’m not lanky at all im actually decently fit. Im no muscle head like the Dwayne Johnson but I have a decent amount of muscle, enough to let a few girls hit on me regularly.

But in Gym when your only friends are a kid that can’t run and a girl that would take a bullet to save a book I quickly get exiled in Gym which means it’s me versus my entire class with two people hiding behind me!

Anyway, the three of us made our way through the halls trying to het to math. Annabeth says her goodbyes and heads to the higher level maths room while me and grover went to the regular maths room. The halls like usual were crowded, it’s times like this I’m greatful that I chose not to get a locker, I carry all of my books in my bag it’s a pain but it works.

We continue pushing past people who were hitting on girls, making out with girls and just being assholes. We finally get to our maths room and tried to enter. Sadly our attempt was in futile because when we turned to get into the class a student shoulders Grover pushing him onto the floor. The kid got angry at the fact someone got in the way of his walk.

He glared at Grover and kicked him.

“Move idiot!” He says I notice Grover is basically blocking him in sense a large crowd of student were trying to get to there own classrooms. I see red flash in my vision but I took a deep breath like I was told to do after I calmed down Igently put my hand on his shoulder. He looked back at me glaring.

“Trust me dude you don’t want to do that!” I say tightening my grip on his shoulder.

“Chill dude, im just putting this retard in it’splace!” He says happily like I should agree with him! I saw red again.

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“You broke his nose! His parents could press charges! And you did it infront of a camera a room full of kids and three teachers!” Paul yell at me. I was now in his office getting yelled at not by Principle Blofis but by my angry soon to be step dad.

“If the cameras pick up audio the won’t press charges. His mums the head of the PTA and her kid was caught attacking a cripple and calling him retarded about five seconds before I broke his nose.” I say calmly, I learned that there was no point in yelling back it just ends with us both not getting our points across.

“Look Percy, as your step dad I have to say I’m proud of you for sticking up for your friend but as a principle I have to point out there was other ways to sort this out besides violence.” He says quietly.

“I know that, and I tried to calm down before trying to stop him but it was the way he told me what he was doing like attacking Grover was the right thing to do!” I say balling my fists, just the thought of what he said made me see a little red.

Paul noticed my fists and sighs.

“Percy, I really don’t think there’s anything I can do for your anger. i’m sending you home early your mother has to talk to you.” He says. I realise I might actually get kicked out which truthfully sucks because I actually like it here and made friends for the first time.

I nod my head and pick up my bag and walk out of the room. When I got to the car park I saw my Moms car outside. I got in and without saying a word my mom starts driving home. I decided to stay quiet and just wait till we’re home.

When we got home I walked into my house my mom stayed in the car for a few seconds then followed me in. When we got into the house I noticed the door was unlocked. I walked passed my front door and noticed two people sitting in the living area on my couch.

I noticed one of them was my Dad Poesiden and another man I wasn’t familiar with.

“Dad!? Why are you here?” I ask. My parents divorced about sixteen years ago when I was one. He’s been in and out of my life for the past sixteen years, he was there for birthdays and important days but he never sticks around, I’ve only ever stayed with him for a week and swore I would never do that again.

It’s not that he’s a bad person he just lives a whole different life, he’s a very wealthy man it’s why we own such a big house my dad willingly pays for everything for me my mother tried at the start but after the sweet shop she worked at shut down she was left without income so my dad stepped up with out her asking and payed for everything and he never stopped.

“Son, this is a friend of mine. His name is Chiron, he’s here to help you.”

I looked at Chiron he was a young enough man maybe in his thirties, he had a thick brown beard and long brown hair going past his ears. He smiled a perfectly white toothed smile. I was nervous but I shook his hand.

“Sit down Percy, we need to talk.” My mom says softly her eyes slightly red. Now I was really scared but I sat down and faced the man named Chiron. My mother sat on one side of the man and my dad sat back down on the other side of him so he was in the middle of them.

“Percy, my name is Chiron. I run a camp in Long Island, in this camp I help young children who have troubles, like anxiety, ADHD, depression, anger issues etc etc.” he says very calmly this is evidently not the first time he had to do this. I realised what he meant when he spoke of ‘troubled’ kids. My eyes went wide and I tried to argue but dad stopped me.

“I know you don’t want to do this Percy, trust me I know what it’s like to have anger issues especially when you have the bite to back the bark! But you need to learn to control this or you’ll…you’ll be…” he tried to compare me to someone else but it almost like he didn’t want to say it.

“You’ll be like Gabe!” My mom finished for him. My nose flared and I saw red. How dare they compare me to that- that Monster! My own mother who dealt with that man for years compared me to him!

“You’ve got yo be kidding me! Him! Are you fucking serious!?” I ask not caring what I said or that I was proving their point. 

“Percy! Sit down!” My father demanded. I noticed I stood up with balled fists my face red as a rose. I sat back down and took a deep breath.

“Why did that make you mad Percy?” Chiron asked with a puzzled look on his face.

“Gabe was this peace of shit that used to live with us! He hurt mom! He hurt me! It wasn’t until I told dad what was happening to us when he stopped.” I explain.

“How long was Gabe here for! A few days?” He asked looking around the room for really anyone to answer.

“Six years!” I answer. “He said he would hurt us if I told anybody but then I twisted my knee while spending a day with dad and they put me on morphine so they could move my knee around, I told him while I was high after the doctor asked why I had a burn mark on my arm.” I explain to Chiron. He looked around with sympathy.

“Im sorry you had to go through that Percy. How old were you when he moved in!” he asked. I knew where this was going from the moment he asked about Gabe I knew he would think this.

“I was five” I say. “I barley remember him getting here I just remember not liking him at all ever.” I finish.

“And Sally you said he started getting angry when he was around eleven or twelve?” He asked my mom. She looked at me and smiled trying to be supportive.

“Yes, after Gabe left he wasn’t the same,one time Gabe tried to hit me and Percy kicked him in the shin. We thought it would just make things worse but Gabe just laughed! He was happy that he got a little kid to take him down ever sense Percy only ever used anger as defence mechanism it’s like it’s the only way he know how to react!” My mother said in tears.

I wanted to say something but I was speechless I barley remember that day I attacked Gabe, I know it wasn’t the last time I did it.

Me and Gabe would always fight, but after that first day he decided that it wasn’t funny anymore he fought back and I lost a lot, but every time he hurt me he didn’t hurt mom and that was worth it in my opinion. The older I got the harder he hit, but I also hit him harder as I aged.

“Percy, your anger issues appears because of Gabe but now that he’s left your still defensive. From the look of it you do it to protect others and your self. I think I can help you.” He says all this opening a folder he had next to him.

“And how would you help me!” I ask. He throws me the folder across a table that separated he three of them from me. I opened the folder and saw pictures, these pictures were of kids. Those kids looked like they were having fun the were hiking, swimming, racing and just playing around.

“This is the camp I told you about, We call it camp half-blood, like I already said the camp is a place to help you so you can get better.

“So these kids have issues to?” I ask. He nodded grimly.

“Yes they do it tends to range from anger issues to OCD or AHDH or depression.” He explains.

“You want to take me there?” I ask sadly.

“Percy your parents can’t help you, and your school has requested that they do something!” Chiron explained. My eyes go wide and I look at mom.

“Paul didn’t have a choice, you attacked a very important kid in that school, once his mother gains the support from the PTA police can and will get involved the school has requested you get expelled but Pauls fought that promising that you would get help! This is that Percy we have no choice! Paul could lose his job!” She explains answering a question in the back of my head.

We talk a bit more Chiron asking some more questions about Gabe or my life these past few years. We answer truthfully and Mom explains more of the situation. Basically Paul could lose his job because he was being biased towards me. He should of expelled a ‘dangerous’ Child from his school.

The only way that my aggressions would be forgotten is if I can prove Paul statements that I can get better with help.

“Will this Camp help me?” I ask admitting defeat towards the situation.

“The Camp will take you for as long as it takes for you to get better, give our take your condition we could allow you to go home for Christmas though that might not happen given your aggressive behaviour.” Chiron explained. I think for awhile their was nothing I could do. I could be gone for weeks or months! Paul only wanted to help me now he could get fired lose a job that he loves and all I have to do is get better by going to a Boot Camp in Long Island.

“I don’t really have a choice, do I ?” I ask my mother. She looked down and that confirmed it for me this was just a formality to make it easier to get me there if I was willing to go.

“Ok, when do I leave?” I ask my mom smiles and so does my dad.

“Preferably as soon as possible, but next Monday would be good so that gives you a few days to say your goodbyes.” Chiron says.

“Ok then, I’ll be there Monday.” I say sadly. He puts his hand on my shoulder and stands up. My parents do so as well and they had a quiet conversation about whatever as I sat down on the armchair hoping to wake up now.

Three days, I have three days.

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Today was Saturday I invited Annabeth and Grover into town and we all decided to go to a small Cafe we loved called the Labyrinth its run by a man named Daedalus and his son Ikaros.

We ordered our food and sat down. We talked and joked and just in general had a good time, but I knew I had to tell them.

“Annabeth, Grover. There’s something I need to tell you.” I say with a sorrowful look on my face. They both saw the look on my face and the smiles faded as did the sound of laughter.

“Your dying aren’t you!” Grover guessed. Annabeths eyes widened.

“What!? No!” I say shocked that was his first guess. He shrugs his shoulders and continues eating.

“What’s wrong Percy?” Annabeths asks, The familiar look of curiosity in her startling grey eyes.

“I’m leaving.” I start. This bring Grovers attention back to me. I decide to just power through. “I’m going to a camp in Long Camp I don’t know for how long could be awhile.” I say

“Is this because of what you did to Matt?” Annabeth asked. I didn’t want to say because I know what Grovers like, but I knew Grover could tell if I lied.

“Yes, that was the final straw, the school board have requested I get treatment other wise both myself and Paul will be removed from the school.” I explain.

“Percy! I’m so sorry! I should have done something and not just lie there and let him-“ Grover started.

“Don’t you fucking dare start taking the blame for this! I knew what I was doing! It’s not you fault Grover it would have happened eventually!” I say trying to make him see it had nothing to do with him.

“In all fairness now, Percy should have gone to a teacher and not attack another student who happens to be a son to one of the most bitchy women in existence.” Annabeth says.

“Thank you for that Annie!” I mutter. She smirks at me and takes another sip of her hot chocolate. Grover starts eating his enchilada.

“So when do you leave?” Annabeths asked. She looked concerned but was hiding it.

“I leave in two days I’ll be gone by Monday” I say, Grovers eye’s widend and Annabeth wentsilent. Ikaros came down with our sandwiches, Grovers enchilada came first because I told Ikaros to prioritise his first because I knew he would blame himself and he stress eats.

“Percy, I’m so so sorry! Please don’t hate me!” Grover says.

“Don’t do that Grover I already told you it was my fault! Not yours” I say trying to get him to calm down. Grover looked awful full of guilt and miserable.

“He’s right Grover, It was his fault! Not yours” Annabeths adds, I knew Grover would be like this it’s just the type of person he was.

“Lets just forget about it and enjoy our weekend together!” I say trying to get them to get out of the sorrowful mood I put them into. Annabeth smirked and finished her Hot Chocolate and started her cheese and ham sandwich. Grover smiled and nodded finishing his enchilada and starts his Coke.

I start eating my sandwich and taking a sip of my blue coloured Coke, Daedalus was very good at making things and loved a challenge so when I told him about blue food fetish he took it as a challenge to make everything I ate blue just like my mother.

We enjoyed our day and our weekend we stayed at Annabeths house for the weekend and I spent my last day with my Mom and Paul. Grover still apologised and promised to text me everyday. Annabeth gave me a hug and kissed my cheek before I left we made slight eye contact and then I left.

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Today was the day, I leave for Camp Half Blood today. My Mom,Dad and Paul drove me up, thankfully Dad always liked Paul and sometimes they even teamed up against Mom with jokes.

The car was big enough we used my dads car which could fit us all including my luggage. It took a few hours to get there but when we did it was obvious that it was a boot camp.

The area was fucking huge! there was a huge open space with multiple paths leading to different places. There was a huge lake with a dock with boats both manually driven and engine driven. Kids were having a good time, people had hiking bags or bows and arrows so there must be an archery range here, I was less happy about that because I couldn’t aim for shit.

But the lake was awesome I loved swimming it was one of the reasons Paul used for keeping me longer I was the best swimmer they had and I have won two ore three trophies for that school. I looked around some more there was metal works, paintball, laser tag and also placed where people were meditating and studying.

There was also two buildings. One was a house on the porch of the house was Chiron and some other dude playing a game of cards. It must be where the staff go to for lunch and stuff like that. The other building was a huge building there was about three stories tall.

I saw kids in the windows and and kids leaving. That must be the dorms. It was a weird look a big building that looked like a normal building you would find in a city in a place like this with wooden buildings and camping look. But I figured they needed a secure building for kids to sleep in.

When we parked up we quickly got out of the car I grab my bag which was really just a duffel bag with a book, a phone charger, some money and clothes. In my pockets held my phone and wallet.

Chiron saw us and started making his way over to us. We walked up to him, we met half way and started talking.

“Percy! Welcome to Camp Half Blood!” Chiron says walking up to us. my parents and Paul started talking about payment and stuff. I lost interest and looked around I saw multiple kids around my age, seventeen. I notice a group of kids sitting at a table they were looking at me.

After what felt like ages my parents get ready to leave. They gave me a long goodbye. My mother looked a little sad but powered through. Paul gave me a quick hug and a pat on the back. My mother hugged me really hard and said good bye.

My father looked me In the eye and patted me on the back.

“Be good and get better. We’ll try to get you out of here for your eighteenth birthday but unless you try we won’t be able to.” He says sternly but a little bit of worry was in his eyes.

I know he’s trying to give me an incentive but decided to go with it.

“Sure I’ll try Dad.” I say smiling slightly. He nods, and walks away towards the car.

I watched them walk away and get in the car they gave me one final wave from the car and they drove off. Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and guided me. We walked across the lake and followed a path into the woods. I knew he was bringing me to the big out of place building so I walked slightly ahead of him.

“So how does the dorm room work, do we get decided by condition or can someone with a minor issue get put next to someone with a major condition?” I ask.

“First thing to learn here is that we don’t have big or little conditions, they all get treated equally none more important then the other.” He explains.

“Well im assuming there is situations where worse conditions take priority?” I ask.

“It depends if it’s life threatening then it will always take priority but we have enough staff here to help everybody so no one has to wait!” Chiron explains. I nod slightly, I was skeptical that this place was really as good as Chiron said but so far it looked good.

“Is it a roommate scenario or will I get my own room?” I ask

“We have about fifty rooms in this building, we also have about forty kids here. So the rooms are equipped for two students but so far we have no need for people to share yet!” He explains. I nod thinking it was a good thing I would get my own room.

“Not to say people don’t share. Some kids are to scared to live alone due to their age or condition, but some choose to live with a boyfriend or girlfriend.” He says.

“You allow relationships here and for them to move in together?” I ask curious towards that arrangements.

“We know that all kids should be as comfortable as possible so as long as they take their medicine and work to get better we basically allow you to get away with stuff like that, if they’re comfortable in a relationship then they can peruse one and do what ever they want. Though moving in together has a few rules.” He explains.

“What kind of rules?” I ask trying to keep conversation up while we walk to the dorms.

“Well depending on condition rules have to be followed if someone with a bad condition escalate. And you have to be at least seventeen to live together.” He explains. So we have to be at least close to legal age and rules have to be followed if one of them has a bad condition.

“Ok then, I’ll remember that!” I say. Chiron smiles. We finally arrive at the building, we walk in to the building and are met with ‘guards’ I paraphrase it because they had security written on their uniforms but they carried no weapons or anything they were just people in fabric.

There was nothing else in the room just doors leading to rooms. We passed by them all and took an elevator up. We pass other rooms until we stopped atdoor with the number 47 written on it. Chiron handed me a key card with my name on it also with a picture of me and a bar code. I scan the bar code across the scanner on the door and the door unlocked.

“Scan to unlock scan again to lock. This I.D will be the one thing that you will need everyday so never forget it.” He explained I nod and open my door. He wished me good luck and walked away.

I walk into the room and scan around quickly. The room was basically two rooms put together. It was a big room with a green carpet and a blue wall with a yellow stripe going around the room.

I chose the right side of the room and placed my bag on the bed and unpacked. I placed my book on a a shelf that was built onto my bed against my wall. And unpacked all of my clothes into a draw set under the bed and then I plugged my phone into the charger which was plugged into a socket above my bed.

I walked over to the window which had black out blinds and black out curtains, I find this awesome because it means I can make sure no one can look into my room.

There was desk against my wall. There was a laptop with a triangle symbol on the top.

I opened it and there was a little scanner on the screen and the web camera turned on. I chuckled a little bit and pulled out my I.D and quickly glanced at it. It had a picture of me on it and my name, age and height on it. I also noticed it had in small bold letters saying **intermittent explosive disorder.** I used it to scan against the lap top and instantly it opened up. My file was on the laptop and I read it a bit.

It said a bunch about Gabe and myself fighting, and there was a part about the abuse I went through with my mother and some more about something called IED also known as Intermittent Explosive Disorder. I read up more on my diagnoses and it fit me perfectly. It also mentioned my ADHD and Dyslexia. I had a L3 next to my name. The laptop had all the rules, conditions and terms.

The L3 meant level three there are five levels so I guess it shows priority in accidents? Level has nothing to do with condition but how bad the condition is so someone with my condition could a feel one or a level five.

After reading up on rules and staff I lay down on my bed and check my phone. I have multiple texts from both Grover and Annabeth.

“Sorry!” I read a message that Grover sent me.

“You get your ass kicked yet?” from Annabeth.

I ignored it for now and decided to update it at night. I heard a knock on my door. I was confused and decided to open the door. When I opened it I saw a group of people they all looked around my age.

One was a brown hair, tanned maybe Native American. she had a perfect white smile and held a pair of hair pins. She wore a bright yellow top under an orange jacket and tight skinny jeans with holes in the knees.

Next to her was a boy with bright blond hair and air of glasses. he had bright blue eyes and a scar on his lip. He wore a orange and purple jacket with a red top under it. He looked buff enough but not like the kid opposite him.

That kid was big enough very buff he was Asian and had a crew cut. He wore a purple hoodie and a obviously accidentally dyed pink top.

Next to him was a black girl with curly brown hair, she had golden eyes and just like the big kid she wore a pink top and a purple jacket.

Kinda in-between them was a small enough latino guy who had elvish features he had black hair. He was smiling like a maniac. He wore an orange jacket andtop with an explosive amount of colour.

And in the centre of them all was a girl, the girl was…. Well she looked good. She was pale, wore black lipstick and had short black hair that just went past her neck. Just like the boy she had bright blue eyes that reminds me of lightning. She wore a leather jacket unlike the others purple and orange were not colours you would ever see on her, she wore black or really really dark grey.

“Uhhh hey?” I say smiling politely. The kids all smile except the girl in leather. She stared at me with those electric eyes. The other boy except who had similar eyes to the girl spoke first.

“Hey, were some of your neighbours, we live in this hall, we just wanted to welcome you and see if you want any help getting used to this place!” The kid says. I look at him quickly I give a polite smile.

“Oh yeah, that would be great thanks!” I say smiling. ‘I’m Percy By the way!” I say waving at them.

“Jason”

“Leo”

“Hazel”

“Frank”

“Piper”

They all said their names, and waved. The girl in leather just stared before holding her hand out.

“Thalia” she says, I shook her hand and I swear I got shocked a little bit.

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**You still here? really? Great thanks. Review if you want.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy remembers a day in the woods and spends a day with Thalia

**Percy’s PoV**

I wake up to the sound of my alarm which made it’s normal loud noise that got me up, just one of the many thing Ihave to do now, wake up early willingly. You see going to class and participating isn’t forced if we want we can just sit around in our dorms for days and days but that goes on our progression sheet meaning it takes longer to get out of here.

It’s been two months since I moved here. School is out for summer holidays but no such luck for us, the best I got was less classes but Maths and English were still up and running to do everyday, which I guess wasn’t so bad but im getting texts from Annabeth and Grover.

Grover just sends ‘I’m sorry’ everyday which is kind of a running joke by now. While Annie just keeps moaning about having to go around Historical American locations instead of going to an architecture camp, I don’t understand that girl.

But they keep sending me pictures of their summers, beaches, new cities, festivals and a bunch of new things. Grover is in Miami! So you know that’s he sending pictures every hour. I sent them pictures as well but the good view is normally ruined by the reason I’m here.

But I’ve made friends, that group of kids that came up here on my first day, they helped me get through the rough patches and we help each other. They have their issues I have mine they help me calm down I help them how ever I can.

Jason, the kid with the blond hair and purple and orange jacket with bright blue eyes. He has a sort of amnesia that comes and goes, not short term memory loss but they’ll be times where he’s fine and times where he forgets who he is completely, but that only lasts for a few hours and happens every few weeks.

His sister Thalia, the reason I can’t sleep at night, she is a mystery the only person in our group who knows what’s wrong with her is Jason, its not physical like Jasons memory or my anger you can’t see it so it’s Mental, we have our theories. Leo thinks she’s faking it so she can be with Jason, I don’t think that’s true.

Speaking of Leo he was the elfish guy who looked crazy and that’s because he is. I mean he’s diagnosed crazy he has very very bad ADHD not like mine it makes mine look non existent. This kid is fast and always fiddles with something, he’s hyper, he’s smart and he really funny. But he is most certainly crazy.

His Girlfriend Calypso who’s also here but doesn’t hang out with us has a case of agoraphobia. It took Leo ages to get close to her, but when they told each other they liked one another they tried to make it work, they’ve been dating for weeks now and he still hasn’t got within a foot have her before she freaks, he tries really hard and that’s a reason I tolerate his craziness at the end of the day he’s a really good guy.

But his mortal enemy is also one of his closets friends. Frank Zhang. He suffers from insecurity issues that leaves him depressed for a very long times. He doesn’t like his father much and after his mum died he got worse, his old friends used to make him feel like shit and when he tried to kill himself and failed his father had him sent here. Now we try to make him feel like the most valuable member of the group.

His girlfriend Hazel is kind of in the same boat as me, she has mood swings she can go between anger to depression in seconds, which in my opinion would make dating her a nightmare, but she is a really nice person and normally after she snaps at someone she’ll cry and apologise profusely.

Piper Jason’s girlfriend is a kleptomaniac she steals everything but she’s also sensitive to how she looks well kind of the opposite, im saying this as a warm blooded male but Piper is hot most men and even women know this but she tried her hardest to hide that, she cuts her hair choppy and tries to hide her face and she wears the baggiest clothes to try and hide her body.

We work out our issues with each other and with group counselling which was ran by this really nice woman named Hestia, she like a therapist but takes in groups. So the eight of us depending on Jason and Calypso so sometimes it could be six of us. But we work together to learn more about each other and learn how we can keep helping each other.

I ‘ve been going to it for two months now and I haven’t spoken much, I opened up about having to get angry to defend myself but that’s about it. I haven’t spoken about Gabe or anything.

Thalia’s the same. She hasn’t said a word to Hestia at all, I don’t think Hestia has ever heard her speak before.

Thalia quickly became a close friend of mine and I hope I became one for her to and I think that started happening about three weeks ago, I’ll tell you what happened.

**—————————————————————————————**

**Three weeks ago.........**

So myself and the group went camping with our local fitness trainer Artemis. We were hiking for hours before we decided to prop up a small camping post with tables and tents the whole lot, people shared tents, people got to chooses who they’re sleeping with cause you know make them as comfortable as possible rule the adults follow.

So it was Piper and Jason in one tent.

Frank and Hazel in another

Thalia and myself in one which was quite awkward.

Calypso got a tent all to her self

And Leo was all by himself.

“Just remember they’re not sound proof” was Artemis’s only response towards the sleeping arrangements. The couples all looked slightly embarrassed Leo looked like he wanted to be part of the embarrassed group of couples and Calypso looked guilty. I knew nothing would happen with me and Thalia cause at this point I think she hated me.

She was always so closed off and said the least things possible to me and she always tried to stay away from me as much as possible she looked shocked that she was stuck with me as a sleeping buddy, but I noticed the tiniest amount of colour on her face when this was announced.

Before I could tell weather or not she was blushing I was spoken to my Artemis.

“Percy, Jason! Can you get some fire wood for tonight!” Artemis asked while looking at me.

“Sure Artemis!” Jason responded and grabbed a bag and marched into the woods, I quickly followed after nodding. While we were walking I saw. Jason digging around the bag he brought.

“Whats in the bag?” I ask while we walk. He pulls out a bright blue marker. And writes an L on a tree then turns left then writes R on the other side.

“What are you doing?” I ask looking at him. He points to the L.

“That means turn Left from camp.” He then point at the other side of the tree at the R. “That means turn Right to get back to camp.” He says.

“Oh so they’re markers then.” I say stupidly.

“Yeah it helps us get back and them to get to us if we hurt ourself they can find us!” He says as we walk, every twenty or so steps he draws an arrow pointing in the direction we’re going and another pointing back towards the camp.

We walk on for about twenty more minutes. Collecting sticks and stuff to burn like moss. By now Jason has left quite a bit of markers leading to us. He was half way making an R marker when he suddenly stopped. I notice this.

“Jay you ok?” I ask. He ignores me and puts the marker in his Jacket pocket.

“Jason?” I say fearing what was about to happen in the middle of know where. He looks at me with wide eyes. I notice he has the bag of sticks on him some bigger then most.

His eyes are wide and he reaches for the stick. I knew what happened before he utters his first words.

“Who are you!? Where am I!? What do you want!?” He yelled. This has happened before and Jason doesn’t normally get aggressive but when he does it’s dangerous to get close.

“Jason, my name is Percy. I’m your friend, we’re in the woods of hospital of sorts that’s here to help you.” i say as calmly as I can holding my hand out showing I mean him no harm.

“Thalia and Piper are the only ones who have been alone with him when this happens, normally there’s the group incase he gets aggressive we have to hold him back till a sedative can be given to him when he wakes up again he’s fine but when he’s like this, he’s dangerous.

Last time this happened Piper ran out of their room and got a guard to help sedate him. When this happened with Thalia she knocked him out herself. But I can’t do that he has weapons of sorts with those sticks and there are no guards around the area. And if he hits me even on the off chance I don’t catch the hit, I can’t risk losing my cool if he attacks, I’ve recently learned that’s a trigger for me.

“Ok Jason, why don’t you put down the stick and I’ll help you get to your sister Thalia ok?” I ask trying to take a step forward. He freaks a little.

“No no stay there!” He says swinging a stick he just pulled from the bag. I take a step back hands still up just above my heart.

“Jason, you’re having a moment where you lose your memories, I can get you to people who will explain everything to you.” I say trying to calm him down.

“No fuck off!” He yells throwing a stick at me, I barely dodge the attack and I could feel myself get a ticked off he tried attacking me.

“Jason! I’m trying to help you!” I say trying to sound calm.

“Don’t call me that, that’s not my name! Or is it!? I don’t know I don’t know anything!” He screams holding his head hitting it a bit.

“Ok that’s ok, I’ll take you back to Thalia! And she can show you everything, she’ll tell who you are and what you mean to you friends, she’ll tell you about parents, your dad and your mum-“ I tried saying but I was interrupted.

“No, No not mum! No!” He says throwing another stick at me this one hitting me in the face. and running Into the woods.

I took a breath to stop myself from lashing out at Jason, he was just scared, he was scared of me just like I was scared of Gabe, if I lashed out at him he would see me the exact same way I saw Gabe, I refuse to ever bare a resemblance to that pig! But I fucked up and spooked him.

I drop my head.

“Fuck!” I mutter. Mom card was a bad card I’ll remember that. I was left with two choices, follow the markers back to camp and get help but risk losing Jason all together or run into the woods after him while I can still keep up with him and help him get some memory of me back which I wasn’t even close to qualified to do.

Of course I chose the dumb thing and chased after him.

It was easy to catch up to him sense he had no idea where he was going and kept stopping to try and look for a way out. He also wasn’t that fast.

When I caught up he pulled out another stick and threw it at me. I caught this one and held behind me.

“Jason, it’s ok. I know your scared and I know I would be as well! But you need to calm down. I can’t help you, Thalia, Piper hell even Leo can you help better then I can. So let me take you to them.” I say calmly. He takes a breath and nods I smile and turn around. Trying to lead him back up the hill we just ran down. I heard the motion the heavy breathing sound I got used to while Gabe was in the house, most humans make these sounds as the swing something mainly when they swing it am offensive way. I quickly used the stick I had to block his swing.

Our stick collided, he took a breath and tried to do it again, I quickly stopped his attack by blocking again. I knew this wasn’t going to help but I couldn’t just let him hit me with sticks. So I kept blocking his attacks.

By now I could hear foot steps of people running, no doubt the heard Jason screaming and copped on to what had happened.

When they got to the area where he threw the sticks at me they stopped. I was forced to look back at Jason when he swung again this time at my feet though I jumped over the stick.

“Down there!” I hear Frank yell. I couldn’t think about them right now Jason was surprisingly good at this. He swung for my head but I quickly blocked. What very little people know besides swimming my interests also involve sword fighting or martial arts with some sword lessons. My father took me to my first lesson at sixteen I was pretty good at it and sticks wasn’t that different.

I decided to stay on the defensive so I put a hand behind my back and using my right hand blocked his attack, he swung again and I parried his attack pushing him back, this would normally be a good time finish him but im still trying to look like the good guy no matter how unlikely that looked right now.

He swung again after he regained his composure I quickly ducked his swing and decided to end this sense the others clearly were doing something else. While I was ducking I pushed the end of my stick not badly but light enough to hurt but not bruise, into his stomach winding him. While he was holding his stomach I pushed him down and kicked the stick out of his hand. He was uninjured but I managed to get a pretty bad cut on the side of my face just next to my eye, from when he threw the stick at me and hit me. By Now Thalia was holding Jasons arms while Frank held his legs while Artemis gave him a small sedative that would last about an hour.

After he was out Frank picked him up bridal style, Frank was undoubtedly the strongest one in the group. I was fit and had a slight build but Frank was bloody Dwayne Johnson compared to me. I was more Tom Holland built.

While Frank hauled Jason off Thalia and Piper came up to me.

“You ok?” Piper asked. I nodded slightly touching my cut.

“He has a mean swing when he wants to, we got that from dad.” Thalia says looking at me, her face lacked that old frown that was normally there but now held a small light smile.

“Actually he threw it at me, I blocked his swings pretty well.” I say slightly bragging. Piper rolled her eyes. Thalia smirked a bit.

“We noticed, who knew you could stick fight!” Thalia said in slight mock.

“Sword fighting isn’t that different, my father use to take me to lessons behind my mothers back, Fencing and martial arts, sometimes we get given sticks in martial arts and combine that with fencing and im pretty good at sword fighting!” I explain. Thalia nods.

“Good job Kelp head!” Thalia replied and walked off following Frank.

“Kelp head? Don’t tell me that’s my nickname!” I mutter. Piper looks at me and sighs.

“Better then Beauty Queen!” She says and walks next to me.

“Least yours isn’t an insult!” I reply. Walking up the hill.

“In my opinion having a nickname that signals out the one thing I want people to ignore me for is an insult!” Piper says.

“That’s why Leo calls you that! Slightly to find humor in your insecurities and to piss you off!” I say. Making Piper laughed hard.

“He’s a dick but he also always manages to make you laugh no matter what!” She says. “You know Thalia’s basically calling you an idiot. Right?” Piper adds.

“That’s how I know it’s an insult. I’m just glad she’s talking to me!” I say. Looking ahead at her she was next to Frank looking at Jason with worry.

“I’d like to say she hates everyone at first but you and me are the only one’s who own the titles. She loved Frank and Hazel when they first came, then me and Leo arrived she liked Leo instantly but me, that took longer then I’d care to admit!” She says. I look at her truthfully that surprised me a lot, Thalia and Piper looked to really get along with each other.

“Do you know why? I mean why she disliked you?” I ask. She nods.

“The same reason a mother doesn’t like her son knowing girls. She was protective of Jason it was obvious to her he liked me and vice versa. Not everyone can deal with Jasons memory loss, she thought as soon as he became to much to deal with I’d up and leave breaking his heart. I never would, I love Jason I could never leave him even if it comes to the point I have to remind him who I am everyday I’ll never leave his side!” She says. I smiled seeing just how much she cared about Jason.

Not everyone could deal with Jason I knew that even now part of me wants to stay away from him for a while, but he’s a good friend I know he has no control of it.

“You know I hope one day I’d find someone like that. Someone who wouldn’t jump ship first chance she got, because I would never jump ship no matter what!” I say. She smiles lightly.

“You know Thalia doesn’t hate you, when she hated me she told me as such, you she’s just ignored, while I have my theorys I don’t really know why” Piper mutterd.

“What’s the theory?” I ask. She smiles devilishly.

“If I told you, you’d ruin the little bet I’m having with Jason!” She says.

“What bet?” I ask, she giggles a bit.

“Same answer as before, Kelp Head!” She says before walking closer to Jason.

I sigh, women are fucking confusing, especially the ones here. As I think this I look at Thalia who quickly glanced at me. Her lightning blue eyes met my sea green eyes, then she looked away again. I decide to walk by myself while I deal with the weird thoughts in my head.

When we got back to camp we rested for the night, Jason had already woke up and after being a Grover and apologising profusely no matter how many times I say it wasn’t his fault, he went to sleep, Piper going with him. Same for Frank and Hazel, Leo and calypso waved at each other before retreating into their own tents. After that me and Thalia went to bed as well. We spoke a little and she apologised for being a bitch. We talked a bit more then slept. When I woke up Thalia was gone already helping Artemis pack up.

——————————————————————————————— 

**Present day**

And that’s what happened this month. It was a head ache and my injury healed quickly, Jason got a splinter and cried like a little girl while Thalia removed it so now we’re even.

I go to open my dorm door to leave but when I opened my door I was surprised to Thalia standing right infront of the door getting ready to knock.

“Oh! Hey!” I say happily looking at her, she wore her normal leather jacket and skinny jeans. She was holding two cups of coffee in each hand.

“Hey! I thought you might need some coffee for the day, I know you have a test in maths!” She says. I smile and take the coffee she was offering me.

“Thanks, your a life saver!” I say taking a sip of the warm cup and instantly feel more refreshed.

We walk together her maths classs being a few doors down from mine.

“Truthfully I think im really close to getting a prescription to this coffee to keep my stress levels down.” I joke, Thalia smiles a little at my bad joke.

“Ok ok, your here because of a lack of sense of humour!” I guess.

“Nope keep guessing Kelp Head!” She says. Recently I made her a bet that I’ll guess her issue, normal people would find this insensitive but not Thalia she welcomed the challenge. Truthfully im not trying to guess, I just comment on her lack of personality and say that’s the reason why, I haven’t said any of the serious ones, which from how Jason treats her sometimes I feel like she has.

We talk a bit more as we walk making fun of each other and laughing our asses of when Thalia ‘accidentally’ pushed this girl called Clarrisse into the fountain, Clarrisse had the same issues I have. Anger except she’s a bitch about it and decided it would be funny to try and dunk my head in the toilet though Thalia did one better and pushed her head first into the fountain, then we ran.

We laughed for ages, but sadly we arrived at my class. We got there in time to hear Chiron tell the class that our teacher has fallen ill so can’t teach the class so the test was postponed. And through Chiron’s deep voice about how sick our teacher was I swear I could hear Leo yell.

“Fuck yes!” At the top of his lungs. Chiron raised an eyebrow, and he apologised and remained silent.

“No test! Sub for a teacher! Easy day from the look of it!” I say happy.

“You have English?” Thalia asked.

“Nope, free day!” I say. She smiled and grabbed my hand, and pulled me away.

“Good, I know what we can do for the day.” She says as she drags me away from my class. I know for a fact Chiron saw us because he made eye contact with me but he ignored Thalia dragging me away. So did Jason who frowned slightly. And Leo made a joke that I didn’t hear that got him slapped in the back of the head by Hazel.

After a few minutes of Thalia dragging me around Camp we arrived at the Border of the woods. This is the same woods where we camped and Jason tried to kill me.

“Ahh good memories!” I mutter sarcastically. Thalia rolls her eyes.

“Surely they weren’t all bad!” She says smiling.

“I can think of one or two moments!” I say remembering spending the night next to Thalia. She walks into the woods, I quickly follow her.

“Don’t we need a permission slip to walk in here?” I ask. She looked at me and raised her eyebrows.

“You scared to break the rules Kelpy” she says.

“And now it’s evolved into Kelpy!” I mutter. She laughs, her smile was perfect. Her white teeth and raven black hair just perfectly fit with her beautiful lighting blue eyes.

“So, what’s the plan here?” I ask pushing past her question.

“I want to show you something!” She says.

We walk for another ten minutes, before she stopped. She stopped at this gigantic pine tree. I looked up and it seemed endless.

“Wow!” I say looking at it. She smiles and pulls out a blanket from her bag and lays it down on the floor.

“You were never going to maths were you?” I ask.

“Nah maths sucks! I’ll go tomorrow and catch up.” She say sitting down in the blanket.

And pulling out a sandwich and a flask of coffee.

“Sit down Jackson!” She says before taking out another sandwich. And tossing it to me.

“You were never going to let me go to class either?” I say more of a statement then a question.

“Debated it, it’s why I got you Coffee, so I could see if your worthy of the tree!” She says while eating her sandwich.

I roll my eyes and sit down taking the sandwich offer. They were very well made, just the right amount of butter and cheese. They were perfect actually.

We spent much of the day just talking and eating. It was actually really fun. Somehow we ended up really close to each other.

“You know, I- I’m glad you brought me out here.” I say stuttering a bit.

“Am I making you nervous Jackson?” She asked while looking at me.

“N-no n-not at all!” I say slightly defensive. She frowns a little.

“To bad.” She says softly. We were really close now, I started leaning in a little and so did she, we were centimetres apart, I leaned furth-

RIIIING! RIIIIING! RIIIIIING! RIIIIING.

We were interrupted by my phone ringing. I closed my eyes and sighed. Then checked the contact. It was Grover I frowned and silently cursed the surprisingly good phone reception. I picked up the phone after giving the one minute signal to Thalia who sighed and looked embarrassed.

“Grover now is a really really bad time, no wait scratch that it an even worse time then really really, like times it by a hundred!” I say.

“Percy, it’s Ikaros, he was in an accident. He didn’t make it.” Grover says. He said those words in seconds but it took me a lot longer to realise what he meant.

“Ikaros, is dead?” I ask pausing after saying his name. I hear soft sobs coming from the other end.

“Yeah Perce, His funeral’s in a week. I thought you might want to be there.” He says.

“Of course I would yeah, I’ll talk to Chiron about getting out for a few days.” I say.

“O-ok, sorry for bothering you. I’ll see you then!” He says.

“Your poor timed but never a bother Grover.” I saytrying to laugh and failing. Grover chuckled a little.

“Bye Perce. See you there.” And with that he hung up. I just stand there, Thalia didn’t hear us as I walked out of ear shot.

“So what was his issue?” she asked as she walks up to me placing her hand on my shoulder.

“A friend of mine was in an accident, he didn’t make it.” I say. The meaning of those words just sinking in now.

“Oh Percy I’m sorry!” She says hugging me. I hug her back, not really sure what was reality anymore.

“Thalia, can I ask you for a huge favour, that you can totally say no to?” I say into the hug.

“Yeah totally!” She replies.

“Can you come with? I just don’t think I can handle going alone!” I say. She waits a few seconds obviously thinking about my request.

“Sure Percy, if Chiron allows it I’ll go with you.” She says tightening the hug.

“Thank you.”


	3. chapter three

Percy’s PoV (6 years ago)

I remember it being wet, we had a storm warning but I knew I had to run. Tears were streaming down my face, a brand new red mark was scraped across my face. I ran past the street crying, it was really late so most people were asleep. I ran and ran until I was at a very recognisable building. It was an apartment building. 

I ran up and pressed for his apartment. The beeping sound went off and I was greeted by his voice.

“Who the hell is here at this hour!” The voice said sounding half asleep. I couldn’t say much just sob as I heard his voice. Instantly he hung up and in a few seconds I saw a figure run down the stairs down to me I could see him through the glass door. 

He quickly opens it and lets me in. I ran into his arms and hugged him tightly. 

“Gabe again?” He asked. I nodded into the hug I only reached his waist I was that small. 

He patted me on the back and brought me up to his apartment. When we got there and I calmed down with a cup of warm milk he asked me to tell him what happened.

“I was sleeping and Gabe came back, drunk like last time. This time he had his friends come over. My mom told them to leave and for Gabe to go to bed, he hit her hard. I saw the bruise. Then his friends laughed, she told me to run and— I did”. I say choking up a bit now that I realised I left my mom alone with Gabe and his friends. 

He sees this. He stands up himself. 

“Stay here Kid, I’m going to go check on you mom and bring her here so she can rest, you can take the guest bed, ok?” He says. when he told me he would help my mom I calmed down a little, I realised I was really tired, so I stood and made my way to my bedroom as he put his coat on and pulled something out of a locked safe that made a clicking noise. 

“Good night, and thanks Ikaros.” I say and go to bed.

“No issue kid, and goodnight.”

———————————————————————————————

Percy’s PoV (present day)

The drive up was long and painful, every time second we were in the car it felt more and more real, I didn’t want it to be real. Chiron was nice enough to let me bring Thalia, the rest of the group understood why I brought Thalia, they would support me, Thalia would tell me to get over myself and grow up. I needed that right now, someone to keep me in the moment and not get drawn into grief. 

“We’re nearly there!” Our driver Argus. He was quite determined to stay quiet this trip while me Thalia spoke, but it was almost relaxing to know I would be home soon, Almost. 

Grover flew back from Miami a few days ago just before the accident. And Annabeth only just arrived yesterday from her long trip. I’ve told them I was bringing a friend and my mother was more then happy for me to have support on the way and way back from the funeral.

When we pulled in to my estate and outside my house we unbuckled and grabbed our duffel bags. Mine was blue with a yellow trident and her’s was purple with a black lightning bolt on it. When we got to the door I passed for a moment and rung the doorbell. 

My mom opened the door, when she saw me she gave a big hug from the door. Thalia kind of stood off to the side awkwardly. When my mom let go of me she saw Thalia. 

“Just to be clear you said ‘friend’ on the phone, Right?” My mom asked. I looked confused and then at I looked at Thalia who blushing slightly. I copped onto what she meant.

“Oh yeah friend! Just friends!” I confirm. Thalia nods in agreement.

“It’s nice to meet you Ms Jackson!” She says holding her hand out. My mom smiled.

“And the same to you, I just wish this was under better circumstances. And please call me Sally.” My mother said trying to sound happy though I know the death of Ikaros hit her hard. 

“I’m Thalia, by the way.” She says. Pointing to herself. My mom smiled and let us in. When we got in I saw people all around getting ready for tomorrow. 

“Percy, you and Thalia are in your room, we have the air mattress set up you can sort out your selfs who gets the bed and who get’s the air mattress. Oh and Percy I would suggest saying hi to Grover and Annabeth before you do anything else.” My mom says as she goes back to baking, knowing her she’s probably hosting a small get together after the funeral. 

“C’mon I’ll introduce you to a few people!” I say putting on a smile. She smiles lightly and follows me. 

First we bump into Annie, Grover and another girl.

“Sup dudes.” I say when I get close, when they see me they instantly rush to hug me in a group hug, Thalia and the other girl staying away in awkwardness. After our group hug we separate and they begin the questions phase of our reunion. We talked a bit, I introduced them to Thalia and they introduce us to Juniper Grovers Girlfriend he met on his trip to Miami who also happens to live in New York about an hour away from here. 

We all shook hand and got to talking a bit more. The part that scared me was Annabeth and Thalia began talking to each other, a lot. They were in a corner with Juniper just chatting while me and Grover talked out of ear shot. 

“So, you like her?” Grover asked nudging his eye brows. I rolled my eyes, he smirked knowing that I did like her. 

“Did you make a move yet?” He asked. I turn and glared at him. 

“Tried to! But then my friend called and gave me depressing news!” I say smiling a little. I heard him laugh next to, me. 

“Oh dam, that is really bad timing!” He says laughing his ass off. 

“I hate you!” I say smiling myself. The girls looked at us, with confusion as Grover laughed some more. 

“Now your turn, what the hell happened in Miami that you came back with a girl!?” I ask smiling a little. Grover smiles a bit once his laughter subsided.

“We met on the plane, apparently we had the same holiday plans, we even left Miami at the same time, i left cause, you know for the funeral but she was just leaving to prepare for going to Spain in a few days.” He says.

“So her family travels?” I ask. He shakes his head.

“She’s eighteen, she doesn’t have a family, she was cared for in a orphanage, until she inherited her parents money a few weeks ago.” Grover explained. 

“Parents money?” I ask wondering what the hell he was on about. 

“Her parents owned a resort in Spain, it was a woods resort, camping, hiking and what not, the government seized the building but it got to much publicity that they couldn’t shut it down, so now Juniper owns it, and the fortune it comes with.” He says. I give him an analysing look.

“Grover, before I ask just know that I’ll believe you what ever you say. But are you-“ I try asking before he interrupted me. 

“Dating her for her money!? Hell no! I didn’t even know she was loaded until a few hours ago!” Grover says. I put my arms up in defence. 

“Sorry, I just had to know!” I say smiling a little. “I know your not a gold digger, you’re to nervous around girls to try it.” I say laughing a little.

I looked back at the girls while myself and Grover laughed. The girls were talking and smiling but Annie had a weird look in her face like, I knew that look that was the ‘my plans is coming together’ look. With one word from Thalia and Juniper Annabeth smiled wide, Annabeth said something and Thalia nodded, then they took out their phones, and started saying random numbers. 

“Oh shit! Are they exchanging numbers!?” I say now very scared. Grover stopped laughing and looked up at the girls then started laughing harder. 

I notice Juniper was giving out her number as well to the two girls. 

“Hey are the sharing numbers with Juniper now?” As I say this Grover quickly stopped laughing. 

“Do the girls we like have Annabeth’s number now?” Grover asked. 

“The better question is does Annabeth have the girls we like numbers?” I say. Annabeth glances at us and sneakily put up her middle finger and smirks at us. 

“We’re fucked!” I mutter. Grover just gulped. 

The girls walk over to us. 

“Grover, what were you laughing, you know people are getting ready for a funeral tomorrow right?” Annabeth says, smirking a little. We just glare at her as her smiles grows wider. 

“Thalia, Let me guide you to where you’ll be sleeping!” I say trying to leave Annabitch alone with Grover. 

“Yeah sure, Girls Coffee later?” Thalia says. The girls nodded in agreement. Great!

I drag Thalia away from them and bring her to my room. Saying it like that reminds me of some of my more- recent dreams. 

When we get to my room I open the door and close it behind me. 

“Annabeth's fun!” She says enthusiastically. 

“You know what you’re doing don’t you!” I say realising her own dark plan. 

“You want to learn about a boy you become besties with their best female friend!” She surmises. 

“I dislike this side of you.” I mutter. She smiles and looks around, she notices the small air mattress and my big bed. 

“So I’m assuming I get the bed, cause you know it’s the gentlemanly thing to do!” She says

“I thought you hated chivalry!” I say looking at her in surprise. 

“I do, but I also don’t want to sleep on the floor!” She says dropping her bag on my bed. I chuckle a bit and throw my bag on the air mattress. She smirks and says nothing. 

After we get comfortable with our new beds, I hear a knock on my door. 

“Come in!” I say. My dad walked into the room and glances at us. 

“Hey son, I just wanted to check on you!” He says smiling at me. I smile back, I have missed my dad but he wasn’t big on hugging. 

“I’m good dad. Oh this is Thalia by the way!” I say pointing at Thalia who waved at him. My dad looked at her and smiled.

“Hello sir.” She says politely, she’s never polite with me.

“Please it Poesiden none of that sir business, I get enough of that from work.” He says chuckling a bit, we laugh as well. 

He waved one last time and left the room. After an awkward pause, Thalia began talking. 

“So how did you meet Grover and Annabeth?” She asked. I thought for a second and answered. 

“I met Grover on my first day of School, he was very nervous and shy, always has been and probably always will be. We hit it off after I did like ninety percent of the work for the start of our friendship.” When I say this Thalia rolled her eyes then gestured for me to continue. 

I met Annabeth when our parents worked together. Her mother runs a publicist company and my father is the CEO of a sports company, they met while sponsoring our local football team, they brought myself and Annabeth along to a business lunch and we just became good friends. Though I wish I could say the same for them, they hate each other.” I explain. Thalia nods. 

She stands up and makes her way over to the door. 

“Come on! Let’s go get something to eat!” She says determinedly. I roll me eyes and awkwardly get off my air mattress. After the struggle of getting up was over Thalia dragged me out to Grover, Annie and Juniper. We decided to go and see if there was a good place open, after all the Labyrinth was closed, cause you know. We leave in hopes of finding a cafe open.

————————————————————————————  
Percy’s PoV (6 years ago)

I woke to the sound of heavy breathing. I ran from my room in Ikaros’s place to check out the noise. I was shocked to see Ikaros carry my barley conscious mom through his Kitchen trying to get to the couch in the sitting room. 

I quickly move forward and try to help him carry her. I was shocked to see her face bruised her clothes ripped and blood dripping down her face. I should have fought, I should have helped her! I was a coward! When we got to the couch in Ikaros’s apartment we lay her down gently, she muttering in her sleep, even in her sleep she was begging them to stop. 

“Stay here with your Mom, I’ll be back!” Ikaros said before walking out of the room and out of the apartment. I run to the window and see him leave the building and get into a car, it was to dark to see it properly but I know it wasn’t his. 

“Percy!” I hear my mom call out for me. I quickly run back towards her. 

“Mom, i'm so sorry. Please forgive me! I shouldn’t of left. I’m so sorry!” I say crying at the sight of her. 

“Percy, it’s ok. I'm not mad at you, this isn’t your fault! It’s mine, I shouldn’t of let Gabe stay, I was just scared of him, but I should have stopped him as soon as I knew he was hurting you!” She says pointing at my leg. I look as well, one final hit Gabe got in just before I ran, it was very badly bruised he nearly broke it. The mark on my face was healing thankfully.

My mom was weak, even at my age I knew that, I told her to get some sleep, she reluctantly agreed and almost instantly fell asleep again. I decided to do so as well and went to the guest room, to sleep off my pain, and anger. 

Before I did that though I saw a safe, the same safe I saw Ikaros grab something from when he went to get my mom, what ever he took he didn’t put it back, he also didn’t close it. I move the door a little and see a case was open with special foam in the case. Only a little foam was missing in the middle it made a weird L shape but it was a side ways L. There was also small golden coloured pointy things the were cylinders with points like arrows at the front. 

I just ignored it and went to bed, I had no idea at the time. Those golden things were bullets, and the L shaped item, was a gun.

——————————————————————————————   
Percy’s PoV (Present day)

After we got some sandwiches and drinks from another Cafe, we ate talked and left. Grover, Annie and Juniper decided to head home. Annabeth walked home sense it was only about ten minutes away. Grover and Juniper would walk half way with her until they meet a bus stop then Grover and Juniper would take a bus to Junipers then Grover would head home from there. 

Me and Thalia walked back to my place. When we got there it was more calm. My mom was making some dinner for the lot of us and Paul was back from school, he was sitting at the kitchen table reading a news paper.

“Percy! How are you?” Paul asked getting up from his chair and hugging me. I hug him back. 

“I’m good Paul! It’s been almost peaceful not getting called into your office everyday!” I say laughing a little. He chuckles and looks at Thalia. 

“And…you must be this Thalia Sally told me about!” He says holding his hand out for her. “I take it you’re not a hugger.” He adds. 

“Spot on, hate them!” She says smiling and shaking his hand, Mom smiles and goes back to cooking. 

“I’m Paul, the guy who’s dating Percy’s mom for the past three years.” He says. Thalia smiles, Paul gestures for us to follow him into the sitting room.

We follow him into the sitting room. 

“So Thalia, when did you meet Perseus?” He asks sitting down on the armchair. Looking at her. The two of us sit down on the couch next to each other, myself closer to Paul.

“We met when myself and my group of friends decided to welcome’s him to our floor!” She says fiddling with her hands.

“Nervous or ADHD he asked gesturing to her fiddling hands. 

“ADHD most of us have it, but like Percy’s it’s minor.” Thalia explains. Paul nods in understanding. 

“I’m not going to ask, why your at the camp, but can I ask how long?” Paul says curiously. I look away not knowing how Thalia will react, she doesn’t like talking about it, that was obvious but I actually had no idea how long she was in there for. 

“I’m getting close to five years now.” She says casually. “Both me and my brother live there, we have no place to go to, my father doesn’t want us and my mother…… is a different case.” She explains looking away. Truthfully that’s the most I’ve ever heard Thalia open up about. I knew they lived there but the fact they have no where else to go shocks me. But thats both Thalia and Jason who had an awkward reaction to their mother being mentioned, and for Jason to remember she was bad even during one of his incidents, obviously it was bad. 

“Your brother is there as well?” Paul asks. Thalia nods.

“Uh yeah, he’s a year younger than me, so I stick by his side.” 

“Will you be forced to leave when you hit eighteen?” Paul asked looking concerned. 

“No, our age doesn’t really matter as long as he don’t do anything illegal with younger people if you know what I mean.” She says. Before my mother could talk more about that happening at camp the egg timer went off and her questions were halted. 

“Dinner’s ready, Thalia I hope you like steak!” My mother says smiling. 

“I love it!” Thalia says smiling and making her way into the kitchen. I start to follow when I feel Pauls hand rest on my shoulder. 

“So dangerous women are you type?” I hear him say. I roll my eyes and smirk, before I could say anything back Paul walks into the Kitchen to eat. I follow so I can eat my mothers fantastic cooking. 

—————————————————————  
Percy’s PoV (6 years ago) 

Ikaros came back at a late hour it was nearly five in the morning. When he came back he checked on my mother, he started speaking though I couldn’t see who he was speaking to. Ikaros went into the kitchen and a figure crouched next to my badly beaten mother, he stroked her cut cheek, he turned his head slightly to look at Ikaros, it was my father. 

I ran to my dad and hugged him tightly, he was shocked at first to see me awake but hugged me back, after the hug he was quick to check me for injuries besides a bruised face and a really painful leg I was fine. He noticed a burn mark on my arm and traced his thumb slightly over it. 

“I’m sorry dad, I should’ve protected her. Im so sorry.” I cry. My father looked at me with a bewildered look.

“Percy, those men were in their thirty’s they were five times bigger than you and there was six of them. Tell me what could you of done? Getting Ikaros was the right thing to do! And I’m so proud of you, getting Ikaros possibly saved your mothers life tonight!” He says hugging me again. After this hug he stood. 

“Speaking of, Ikaros I owe you. Thank you for what you did tonight!” Dad says. Ikaros looked at him, I saw Ikaros put an object into the safe. 

“You’re welcome, but we can never speak of this again!” He says glancing at me. I was curious as to what happened but said nothing. 

“Percy, I’m going to take you to the hospital tomorrow to get the leg looked at, ok?” My father says and sends me to bed. I agree and head back to bed for the third time tonight. 

My Father had a conversation with Ikaros and left, he picked me up the next day at twelve, I got a decent nights sleep and went to the hospital.

————————————————————————————  
Percy’s PoV (Present day)

Sleep eluded me for most of the night, maybe it was the thought of Ikaros dying or maybe the fact Thalia was sleeping in the bed over, or maybe it was this air mattress sent from hell I was sleeping on.

When I finally slept I had a thankfully dreamless night, the last thing I need is weird dreams. 

Thalia was up before me as usual she was much more of a morning person then I am. when I got out of bed Thalia was having breakfast in the kitchen talking to Paul and Mom. 

“Morning Honey!” My mother says when she sees me. Paul nods and Thalia waves from her stool while eating blue pancakes. 

“So, you were saying that Percy use to only eat Blue foods growing up!” Thalia says looking at my mum. 

“Mom!” I say looking at her. Thalia’s smile widens. 

“It’s fine, I was just telling Thalia a few stories, nothing embarrassing!” My mom says defending herself.

“Yeah, like the time when you were eight and went on a road trip, and the first thing you said on the eight hour long drive was ‘what’s a blow job?’” Thalia says bursting into laughter. Paul smiling and mom looking away laughing into her hands. 

“Mom!” I exclaim. I take my seat next to Thalia. She smiles at me. 

“Did you ever find out Perce?” Thalia asks. I glare at her.

“Yeah! I looked it up!” I admit regrettably. “And why did I say that?” 

Thalia bursts out into fits of laughter while my mom looked appalled and Paul magically had to go to work with a huge smile on his face. I swear I heard him laugh when the door closed. 

“Paul will meet us at the church, but we should get ready if we want to be there early!” My mom says recovering from her shock. Thalia nods and leaves to change. I quickly eat my breakfast and when Thalia comes down in a pure black dress that went down to her knees and wrapped around her shoulders, I went to get changed myself. 

I wore a clean suit, white shirt, black coat, black waist coat and black pants with black shoes and my tie was red. 

We left the house thirty minutes before the funeral and still didn’t get good seats. We sat in the back next to the old people and the people who cough every five seconds. 

The priest was talking about God welcoming Ikaros into his kingdom, when someone coughed right down my neck. I squinted my eyes and balled my fists. I saw my mother move to calm me but Thalia bet her to it by resting her hand on my balled fists. My fists unclenched and she held my hand and I held hers, we were like that for the rest of the service. 

I swear I saw Paul and Mom smile at that small action. The rest of the service went really well. The person coughing didn’t stop coughing, but I really didn’t care for some reason. 

When the service finished we made our way outside. We talked to Daedalus a bit who was a fucking mess right now, understandably of course. 

Daedalus decided to leave town for a few weeks. He already packed up his bags he’ll be leaving soon so he won’t be going to the service my mother prepared, but that’s ok, he in pain.

We all went to the service my mother made. Everybody had a good time well they enjoyed the service. 

After the service ended we all relaxed for a bit before heading to bed. 

“Great, the Mattress made by Satan.” I said half asleep. 

“If you want you can sleep on the bed.” Thalia says, now ready for bed, she was wearing a top that went all the way to her legs. And she wore shorts under that I was sleeping topless with a pair of pants on. 

“No, then you would be in the hell I am.” I say. 

“I never said I wouldn’t be in the bed as well.” She says getting into bed herself.

‘You mean, we share the bed?” I ask. She nods and turns her back from me.

I look at my slightly deflating mattress and then at the comfortable bed, I shrug and get into the bed next to Thalia. 

Sleep finds me quickly, thankfully.

———————————————————————————  
Percy’s PoV (one year ago)

The next day my father took me to the Hospital and I got my leg checked out. The doctor check my arm as well per my dads request saying my arm was hurting a lot. Which was a lie, but he then saw my burn marks on the arm and questioned them, my dad acted like he didn’t see them that night. 

He was furious, after I was checked out the police were called by the hospital following protocol for possible child abuse. The cops showed up at my house, my mother explained that Gabe grabbed his bags and just left, he took his car half of his belongings and that was it then poof, that was five years ago.

The police did an investigation which lasted a week then declared him missing and that if he ever showed up again to call them immediately. Gabe never came back.

Over the years some more of what happened that night made more sense. My mother went through therapy, there came a point when she would panic as soon as someone touched her, even me. My mother was never really the same after that night, she never told me what happened when I ran but it became obvious Gabe and his friends, did something to her that deserves death, Gabe friends were all arrested I was never told the charges. 

I moved on with my life, so did my mom. My dad was around a lot more as well. My mom met Paul a few years later which was when she got much better. 

My dad spent three months with the guy before he trusted him, I guess he didn’t want a repeat of Gabe. 

Combined with the secrecy, my dads lies that he told the doctor at the hospital and Ikaros carrying the gun with him, a thing you should know about my house, we are approximately ten minutes from a thick woods those woods have rivers, lakes and roughly three different types of trees. People have got lost in there, there was no point in telling you that, I just thought I would mention it. 

I know Gabe will never come back, and I owe Ikaros and dad for that and I will live my live knowing this, but i’ll also be able to sleep without worry or nightmares because I know one more thing, that no one knows I know. 

Gabe got what he deserved!


	4. Chapter 4

**Thalia’s PoV**

These past few months have been……strange. The moment I met Percy I knew there was something wrong with him. But after two months he’s become one of my best friends. It’s been a while sense I’ve let someone other then Jason this close. I’ve even met the dudes parents! We spent most of summer together wewere part of the large group but still, there was times where it was just the two of us.

Truthfully I know I like Percy, my first thought when I met him was that he was hot, then he was a nice person! Then he became a member of the group, then he helped Jason and defended himself from his attack without hurting him which not a lot of people would do. Then I let him get close now I’m fucked. I really like Percy but after what happened last time, I shouldn’t.

I was in my room laying in my bed watching some Twitch when I heard a loud bang coming from the room across from me, Percy’s room.

I sigh and turn off my phone and go to check on him, after I leave my room I knock on his door.

“One minute!” I hear him say from his room. After we came back from his home he’s been dealing with things better, Percy might just be going home for his birthday next week. Which he’s really looking forward to.

When he opened the door I instantly notice his topless torso.

I remember that morning when I woke up before Percy the day after the funeral. I instantly felt his arms around me. While I was originally shocked I quickly got comfortable but I realised that his mom would probably be coming into the room in a few minutes like the day before, I quickly moved his arms from around me and got out of bed, I saw his body which I didn’t see last night, I was tempted to get back in bed but decided it would just be awkward if his mom came in.

But sense then I can’t stop thinking about every time I look at him. I realise I’m blushing and try to take attention off of me. I look into his room and see nothing out of the ordinary.

“What was the loud banging noise?” I ask still trying to see what fell in the room. He blushed slightly.

“I uhhh fell out of bed.” He admits, I look at him sceptically and checked my watch.

“It’s like 2pm, why are you still in bed?” I ask. Today is a day off so he can do what ever he wants but it wasn’t normal for even Percy to sleep in like this.

“I couldn’t sleep last night, so I’ve really only got a few hours of sleep.” He says conveniently yawning.

“Oh, ok then. Try and get some sleep.” I say and head back into my room. When I shut the door I sigh. That guy fucking annoys me. He just stands there topless and barely awake, like he doesn’t care how that effects me! Ok he doesn’t know that it effects me, but still!

Part of me wanted to knock on Percy’s door and take him to my tree, going there helps me sleep sometimes. I stood to go to him but I paused, no,I can’t, don’t let him get closer then he already is! I can’t, not after what happened to Luke- No no don’t don’t think about it!

Too late.

**—————————————————————————————————————**

**Percy’s PoV**

After Thalia left I hesitated and debated following her, I decided against it and went back to bed. Unfortunately sleep avoided me like the plague. I stood again and decided to get some exercise. I quickly threw on a top and and put on a proper pair of track suit pants.

I left my room and decided a run around the lake a run like that should cover me. Just before I put in my AirPods I heard heavy breathing coming from Thalia room. I was a little concerned, so I knocked on her door.

“Thalia? Are you ok?” I ask through the door.

“Y-Y Y yeah I’m fine! C-C-Can you get Jason, Please!” She says through heavy breaths, she sounded scared, I wanted to ask her more but decided to do what she asked.

“Ok, ok I’ll go get him!” I say and go get him, I wasn’t sure how urgent this was but I also felt this wasn’t a social call, I decided to put some speed to my movement not running but not walking either.

Jasons and Pipers room was a few doors down so I got there quickly. I knocked, no answer, I knocked again hoping he was in there.

“What!?” I hear through the door in an almost growl like voice.

“Jason, it’s Thalia, she asked me to get you, she doesn’t sound right, she sounds scared, her breathing is heavy-“ I was interrupted with Jason opening the door and putting on his top and running down to Thalia’s room. I look into his room and see Piper adjusting her top and hair while sitting up from their bed she shrugs and I take my leave after Jason. Piper stopped me. She quickly ran out and grabbed my arm.

“Perce don’t, Thalia doesn’t like an audience. Only Jason can be near her right now, you’ll just have to wait.” She says, with sorrow in her voice.

“Whats happening?” I ask. She shrugs again.

“Truthfully I don’t know Thalia’s condition only Jason does. But from that quick description you gave I’d assume a panic attack.” She says looking down at Thalia’s room.

I think more on her words, a panic attack? What is wrong with Thalia? I decide to stop thinking about if Thalia wanted me to know she’ll tell me. I say my goodbyes to Piper and put my AirPods in putting on some Score as I run out of the building.

I quickly cycle through songs on their album, I landed on ‘Where do you run’ I smiled and decided to keep that on. I ran with the song in the background, I quickly pass a few teenagers, I see Chiron pass me with three new kids surrounding him. I smile and wave and he does to.

I quickly finish the first quarter of my run, and power through when I bump into Clarrisse infront of five of her brutish friends. I fall back and so does she, when I stood up and saw it’s Clarrisse I bumped into I expected a good bit of abuse. She glared at me but smiled, unfortunately that scared me more then her glare.

“Normally I would kick your ass for that, but I see you have other issues!” She says as she picks up a pair of….binoculars? She puts them up to her eyes, and points them at the window.

“What are you doing? Trying to get some free porn?” I say partly joking but mainly curious.

“At first maybe, got close with your pal Jason and Piper! But we found something even better!” She says. Gods I hope she was joking about the watching sex thing.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

She smirks. She hands me the binoculars and points to a window. I grab them and curiously look through them at that window, stupid I know. When I looked through them I saw a scared girl with wide eyes and an even paler then normal face, and her brother trying to reassure her as she panics.

“Guess we finally found what’s wrong little miss princess!’ Clarrisse says laughing. I put the binoculars down, they were spying on Thalia watching her have a panic attack like it was a joke.

I told myself that it was just three more days until my mom comes to pick me up for my eighteenth. All I have to do is keep my cool. I looked at them and saw their laughing faces as they laughed at Thalia for having her own issues.

At least three of her friends deal with Panic attacks them selfs and they were still laughing. Clarrisse has her own anger issues, and her closest friend tried to kill herself when she was outed as gay infront of her whole school! And they still laugh at someones issue. They were the truely sick people here. Birthday be dammed, they’re laughing at Thalia. The kid that bumped into Grover came back into my mind, the way he acted like he deserved the right to hit Grover because of his condition.

Gabe came back in my head and how he hurt my mom, how he put his cigarettes out on me. Nancy Bubbafet, and her tormenting Grover in one of our schools, before we both got kicked out. All the other kids who laughed at my friends, the people that dropped two litres of ice cold water on Annabeth in the library. The people who laughed at me. Then I remembered the people who were scared of me, why were they scared of me? Oh yeah! Because they hurt my friends, and I made them suffer, birthday be dammed.

I turned fully facing the laughing Clarrisse. I looked at my hand with the military grade binoculars in my hand, and I shoved the binoculars right into her stomach at only a portion of my strength. She held her stomach while winded, her friends recover from laughing quickly and tried defending their friend. I threw the binoculars at one of them hitting them square on the head putting them on the floor.

One of the big brutes ran at me and I ran at her, she tried punching me but I ducked mid run and pelted her in the stomach. Bring her down. By now Clarrisse had recovered from my first attack,

The two friends I already took down decided to stay down. Her other three decided to be dumb and charge me together. The only guy of the group ran at me and tried sucker punching me but I caught his hand and bent it backwards definitelyspraining maybe breaking it. He knelt down holding his wrist. The other two hadn’t copped on neither had Clarrisse.

Clarrisse charged at me and I dodged her first punch but got caught of guard by the next one. I was slightly winded but I’ve felt worse. I kicked her shin forcing her leg to topple making her kneel I then elbow her in the face hearing a crack when my elbow made contact with her nose.

Her other two friends analysed me. They were debating who would hurt them more me or Clarrisse if they ran.

They didn’t get that option because Chiron came walking over with the three kids and instantly saw the carnage I had caused.

Shit.

**———————————————————————————————**

**Thalia’s PoV**

When my panic attack subsided I calmed instantly Jason looked so worried. I remember telling Percy to get Jason.

“Lu-him again?” Jason asked.

“Don’t, don’t make me think. Please.” I mutter shedding a tear. Jason nods.

“You know he’d be happy for you?” I hear him say through my now closed eyes.

“What happy I’m having panic attacks!?” I ask a little annoyed. Jason shook his head.

“That you’re moving on.” He says. I look at him incredulously

“I’m not, Percy is just a friend!” I say.

“Who mentioned Percy?” He says smiling a little. “You forget I’m the only one here that can read you like an open book. I know why you avoided him at the start, I know why you hate just how close you two have gotten, and I know why you took him to your tree.” He says some more. I was going to reply when I heard a loud yelling noise outside.

I quickly look outside, And see Clarrisse’s friends. Jason looked out the window as well. And sighed. I noticed Percy was there as well, he was looking at the ground his face getting redder and redder as they laughed he looked so conflicted, I noticed he was holding something in his hands.

“What do you think the chances are they saw my, attack?” I say panicking slightly. Jason didn’t respond. “So they saw the attack, and so did Percy.” I say now knowing I can never look at Percy again, he probably thinks I’m weak. Then I saw his red face goes slack, His face colour returns to normal, he raises his head looking at Clarrisse.

“Oh this will be good.” Jason said clearly seeing something I didn’t. But before I got a chance to ask what he meant Percy lost his shit! Clarrisse was down in seconds her friend was down just as quick as the other three decided to be dumb and continue attacking him.

I saw Percy kick their asses! I mean I knew he had anger issues and I knew he could stick fight but this was full on fighting.

“Jeesh if this is what he can do with his fists how much was he holding back when I attacked him?” Jason asked. I look at him, his face is completely neutral. I saw him dodge a punch and deck someone in the stomach instantly taking them down.

I saw Chiron walk around a corner with a few kids by his side. I knew this would end terribly. After Percy took down Clarrisse Chiron came face to face with the carnage.

I ran down to them with Jason next to me. Chiron was giving out to Percy but Percy just stood there not even twitching his face a little bit.

Percy was sent to the behaviour management officer, so was Clarrisse as soon as she wakes up. Myself and Jason follow Percy who was being dragged off by security to our behaviour management, or as we call him ‘Dickhead’

“Percy, are you ok?” Jason asked. Percy took a really really long deep breath.

“Yeah, I am fine, just blacked out there for a few seconds.” He mutters through the security guards.

Me and Jason followed no matter how many times the guards told us to scram, they couldn’t make us do shit. When we got to his office the security personal told Percy to wait here in the waiting room, they tried to stop us from getting close but they didn’t stand a chance we sat right next to him and refused to leave.

When he got called into the office we followed him, much to the distaste of everyone, You see Percy has anger issues, and this guy, this guy had away of even making Calypso get in your face mad.

The man took one look at us and rolled his eyes.

“Ok then Perry Johnson is it?” He says half heartedly.

“No it’s Percy Jackson.” Percy responds.

“Ok then, it says here Perry that you are meant to be heading home in a few days for your birthday, correct?” Dickhead says, Dickhead was a straight up Asshole that had

absolutely no care about our issues, in fact his favourite people were people like Percy with anger issues, he loved making them tick. But the fact Percy was leaving took me by surprise I knew he was talking to Chiron about leaving but I had no clue it was cleared and in the works.

“Well Perry that won’t be happing this year! Maybe on your next birthday if your still a menace on society still.” Dickhead muttered. Percy affected eye contact. He told me abut that, when people tick him off he diverts his eyes, he gets angrier if there’s direct eye contact, guess he takes it as a challenge.

His eyes land on the name on the table. ‘Dionysius’ was written in big bold letters.

“Sorry, Mr D, you must of misheard me. My names isn’t Perry, it’s Percy.” Percy says calling the man Mr D, his eyes begged for a challenge. Bad idea Perce, this guy loves challenges and rarely looses them.

“Mr D? Oh! Because my name is Dionysius, I suppose it is a hard name to pronounce, Perly” Mr D replies.

“No, Dickhead is just annoying to say so I shortened to Mr D.” Percy responds. Dickeheads normally calm demeanour faded and a small scowl was evident on his face.

“Well Mr Jhonson, besides that mean comment, you have had a good record these past few months and it really is a shame you let yourself and your family down this close to your birthday.” Mr D said. Yeah I like that nickname.

“My name isn’t Jhonson!” Percy says, getting ticked off.

“You know what your right, my apologies.” Mr D says, I didn’t like where this was going. “It says here on file, Percy Ugliano.” Mr D says. I swear I didn’t even see Percy move the next thing I know Mr D’s head was pinned under Percy’s elbow as he applied pressure. Mr D squirmed in his seat, I quickly pulled Percy back as I swear I saw red in his eyes.

Ugliano? who the hell was that. I know he had a step father years ago but I never really got a name. Percy calmed down as I held him back and Jason made sure Mr D was ok.

Mr D had a big bruise on his face but he was still smiling. No one had attacked him before, and now he found Percy’s button.

“Get out! Perry Jhonson you are prohibited to interact with any outside activities, for the next two weeks! you go to class and back to your dorm you are not aloud outside past six o’clock and by the gods you will not be leaving this camp until you are clear of anger!” He yells though he still smiles.

When I dragged Percy out of Mr D’s office Percy screams at the top of his lungs. I flinch slightly and so does Jason. When he’s done screaming he looks at me, the red in his eyes seems to disappear, he looks at me and Jason and calms down.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He says with a raspy voice.

“Percy, this is my fault, I should off closed my curtains, I didn’t know Clarrisse was out there, then I saw you kick her ass, and…. Thanks.” I mumble. Percy looks at me.

“They shouldn’t have been watching and they shouldn’t have laughed. I was just doing what you would off ended up doing anyway.” He says his voice still raspy. I smile and decide to start walking back to the dorms.

“How about we go to the Cafe on the grounds.” Jason suggests. We both nod and head to the Cafe. When we got there Jason chose our seats. It was a two person table but I suppose Jason can pull a seat over to us.

A waitress comes over to a now seated me and Percy while Jason looks for a free chair.

“What can I get you three today?” She asked I had a quick scan of the drink menu and saw a nice looking Latte.

“I’ll take a Latte.” I say pulling out my drink card, Percy doing the same. She checks our cards and writes my order down.

Our drink cards are basically our I.D cards it just says that caffeine or Alcohol won’t effect or conditions, I’m not aloud Alcohol knowing Percy I’d say he’s the same, but Caffeine is good. Leo isn’t aloud Caffeine but he is aloud to drink as soon as he turns eighteen.

Jason can drink Coffee but chooses not to he doesn’t like be hyped up on energy if he loses his memory.

“I’ll take a Hot Chocolate.” Percy says. The waitress writes his order down,

“And what can I get for you?” She says looking at Jason.

“Uhhh can you give me a minute to decide?” He asks. The waitress nods and walks off to get our drinks.

Jason looked around for a few more second before pulling out his phone.

“Shit sorry guys, Pipes needs me back at the room. I’ll have to ditch but here!” He says pulling out a twenty bucks. “Drinks are on me.” He says and leaves.

‘Dickhead’ I think to myself. Such a fucking Cliche. The waitress came back with our drinks and left. I couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit at Jasons attempt.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t go home for your birthday.” I say. He nods.

“It’s not your fault. And it was really fun to kick Clarrisse’s ass!” he says laughing. I smile.

“I didn’t know you could even fight like that!” I say. impressed.

“My dad was very infested in my fighting abilities, he figured if I couldn’t control my anger I should be able to defend myself if I need to. Thats where the sword fighting came from, and the fighting.” he explained. I smile, his dad pays for everything.

“How well off is your dad any way? You say he’s the CEO of a sports company and he pays for everything but when I saw him he looked…Normal?” I say struggling with the last word. Truthfully I have no idea what to make of Percy’s family. His father and step father act like best friends, and his mother seem to be very close with his father still.

“My father started a company by being bored. His friend Iris made this weird trident logo for his clothes because she was bored. She though he would like it. He did like it, he liked it so much he had it attached to his hat! One day he was walking across the street when this random guy came up to him and asked where he got the hat, my father explained how he got the hat. This guy asked how much for the hat, it was a gift for his son. He went up to 100 bucks before giving up. “ He says this smiling to himself like retelling a story he loved hearing.

“After that my dad asked Iris if she could make more of the logos, she said yes, they spent three months buying cheap ass hats and fabric then sold them all in a week. He used the money to buy machines to make the hats quicker, then he used the next batch of money to hire two people, one to help him and the other help Iris. Then it just grew and grew. Now my dad runs Trident one of the most successful sport companies in the world. He designs jerseys, hats, jackets even the team he sponsors wore his shit before he sponsored them.” After he was done explaining I smiled.

“What was your father like?” He asked. I hesitated for a bit, but decided talking about dad might not hurt.

“My dad wasn’t like your dad, he came birthdays and Christmas that’s it maybe sometimes he’ll stay till new year. He was a pilot. He flew around the world so many times he lost count. I’d like to say he loves me and Jason but I don’t think that’s true. That last time I heard from him was when he dropped me and Jason off here. He told me to stay by Jasons side and never leave him. No matter what.” I explain. He looked at me and gives me a stupid sympathy smile. I glare and he realises and stops giving me the sympathy smile.

“Ok then, lets stop talking about parents! And just enjoy our drinks.” He says smiling a proper smile. I smile lightly as well and continue drinking, we joke around and laugh until we were told to either leave or quiet down.

We decided to leave, and walk around the camp a bit more until it got dark. I notice some of the security guards were looking at Percy, he noticed to.

“Well, I have to get back to my room, cause you know.” He says pointing back to the dorms. I sigh actually enjoying his company, so I make a reckless decision.

“Ok then, lets go!” I say and start making my way back to his room. I swear I hear him laugh then follow me.

**——————————————————————————————————————**

**Percy’s PoV**

Thalia’s amazing! Today has been a long day and frankly im still really tired. But she’s made this long unbearable day turn into a fun filled…..date? Is this a date? No, when I ask Thalia on a date it’ll be hella romantic. But she’s made this day fun. I’m not going home, technically when I turn eighteen I can leave when ever I want, its my own decision.

When we get back to my dorm room Thalia sits on my bed still talking about the time she punched Clarrisse and broke her nose, its the reason Clarrisse is scared of her, I laughed at her story. We talked a lot more and Thalia even managed to convince the Stoll brothers just under us to steal some of the stronger drinks from the Cafe we were just at. Connor and Travis Stoll were here for kleptomania just like Piper.

They smiled at the challenge and the promise they can keep half off what they steal. Thalia gave them the location off where she saw them store the beer and off they went. A few minutes later they came back with a lot of shit.

We took or share and they took theirs.

We drank until the room was spinning and then some more.

I’ve been told that Alcohol doesn’t help my Anger Issues so I’m not licensed to get some when I turn 21 if im still here. Thalia said it was the same for her.

We had a good time until about eleven PM when we were just tired, we were drunk, tired and happy. Just the way it should be every dam day.

We both lay on my bed, our heads touching the wall on the side of my bed and our legs on the floor sense our legs were on the other side of the bed.

I don’t know what made me ask, maybe it was curiosity, or drunkness, or maybe a false sense of security but I asked Thalia a question.

“Why are you here?” I ask, kind off slurring my words but I knew she understood. Her drunken smile disappeared, she opened her mouth but closed it again, then spoke.

“There was this boy-“ she began but was interrupted by a knock on my door. My eyes went wide.

“Shit!” I say Thalia quickly picked up the discarded drinks and ran into my bathroom with them, granted she did nearly fall and I nearly laughed. I knew I had to get my shit together.

“Who is it?” I ask through the door.

“Percy! It me! Chiron!” He replies through the door.

“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” I say mutter quickly. I take a deep breath pop a chewing gum in my mouth that was conveniently next to my bed, I took another deep breath and opened the door.

“Sorry I was asleep.” I mutter quietly, my drunken nature and messy hair I got when Thalia gave me a nuggy, long story might explain later.

“Percy, sorry for waking you, but I want to ask a favour.” He says, I kind of look at him with confusion. He takes his hand and pulls over a little kid, and another older kid, I recognised them from when I ran passed Chiron earlier this morning, they’ve been with him all day, so they definitely saw me kick ass today.

“I need you to watch these kids for a few days, just like how you were taking into a group I would like you to extend the courtesy, they’re new and they could use some help.

I look at him, I had to play this cool.

“I don’t know Chiron, I’m kind off banned from leaving my dorm until either I die or Mr D dies. Which ever comes first.” I say. He sighs and rubs his chin.

“I can’t let you go home for your birthday, you know I can’t, but I will remove your punishments and if I see an improvement and these kids say you were nice, helpful and civil, I’ll allow you and your group of friends into town for an entire day. Deal?” He offers, before I could respond, Thalia runs out of my room.

“Fucking deal!” She says shaking the guys hand. I couldn’t help but laugh at the look on Chiron’s face.

He shakes his head and recovers.

“Great! Then Percy you can look after Nico and Thalia can look after Bianca! That sounds fair!” He says.

“Woah woah I was agreeing for Percy’s sake I don’t want to deal with kids!” She says.

“Is that alcohol I smell on your breath!?” He says crossing his arms.

“We will see them tomorrow morning!” She says smiling and dragging me back into my room. I see Chiron rolling his eyes before the door closed and she turned the lock.

“Well that made it look like we were doing something we shouldn’t be!” I mutter. Thalia look at me and the pieces fit together. So in her drunken state she unlocked the door, and waved off to Chiron and the kids.

“Its ok were not having sex! Just drinking!” She screams down the hall. I have no idea how Chiron reacted and just laughed my ass off.

“Better?” She asks.

“Fuck no but that was hilarious.” I say laughing some more. She laughed a little to. She’s never gonna leave her room if she remembers this in the morning.

“Ok I think I’m done for the night, im heading to bed! I say and lay down on my bed not bothering to take my clothes off. I was fucking tired, I fell asleep almost instantly.

I didn’t hear Thalia leave but she was long gone when I woke up in the morning majorly hung over and majorly tired.

**—————————————————————————————————**

**Ok, so I fucked up a little, remember the last chapter, when I had Thalia talk about leaving at eighteen, well my stupid mind forgot that Percy was turning eighteen soon in this story so I’m super dumb, so lets just forget I ever said that, I’ve edited the last chapter and I should be posting the new edited version soon after this chapter. So lets just come together and lecture my dumb brain for being stupid and just forget I ever typed it. Thanks.**

**Also I’m currently writing this on Christmas Eve but I might proof read in a day or two, but incase my writing catches second wind today, Merry Christmas Eve and Merry Christmas**

**. <[:-)**

**Ok then it took me waaaay longer then I thought it would, by the time I had time to prove read this I was on the other side of the country helping my sister move so I was in a camper van with no internet for a few days then I forgot I didn’t post this, my bad.**


	5. Chapter five.

Thalias PoV

I refuse to leave my room, I utterly refuse! End of discussion. I currently have the worst headache, I feel like puking and my vision isn’t the best, I barely remember anything, except I yelled down the hall at some point, no idea what I said or did just that I made people uncomfortable and it was hilarious. 

I decided to just lay in bed for a few more hours, the fact I was drunk was probably made obvious to most people and I’m one, underaged and two, not aloud due to my condition, so missing class just wasn’t worth it since I’m probably going to Mr D’s office anyway. 

I shoved my head back into my pillow trying to go back to sleep. It wasn’t hard for me to doze off but then Jackass showed up. My door got shoved open and the light from the hall shone into my room hitting my face. 

“Fuck off!” I said not giving a dam who it was. 

“Thanks for the key Jason.” I heard a voice say, I heard Jason laugh a little his laughter getting further and further away as he probably walked down the hall. Sadly I recognised the voice of the guy who opened my door. 

“How are you not suffering like I am Jackson!?” I mutter shoving my face directly in my pillow trying to block out the light. 

“For every one drink I had you had like three. You kept saying you could handle it.” He responded. Of course I said that.

“Fuck off, let me sleep.” I responded to his chirpy tone like he was enjoying this. 

“I’ll admit, my head hurts a little but I bet it’s nowhere near as bad as your’s.” Percy responded. “It also helps that I woke up like an hour and a half ago and if I can take one good thing from my ex step father is that he had a miracle hang over cure.” Percy added with his chirpy tone still on his face. 

“Whats the cure?” I asked. I wouldn’t say it to him but my head felt like it was splitting in two and my stomach felt like it was about to project my last three meals. 

“I’ll tell you, if you get up.” He bargained. 

“Dick!” I say to him, angry at the deal. 

“Ok then, suffer.” He says walking to my window. 

“Do it and I will end your life.” I threaten already trying to prepare myself for the misery that this will bring. 

“You gotta get out of bed in order to kill me” he countered. 

He opened the blind and curtains. My entire room lit up with light thanks to the stupid sun. 

My entire body felt like it was burning my eyes felt like acid was being poured on them, even when I shut my eyes. 

“You’re such a dick!” I scream doing everything in my power to not let the light hit my face. 

“You might not remember this so I’ll remind you. You promised Chiron that we would look after two kids today and for the foreseeable future.” He told me. 

I remembered very little of that deal. 

“Tell me your lying.” I beg. Percy shakes his head. 

“We have to meet them in twenty minutes, so I need you to get up.” 

I rolled my eyes at his order which was an awful idea. 

“Let me take a shower, I’ll meet you down there.” I muttered and groaned as I lay up in bed, I realised I wasn’t wearing a lot of clothes, just my underwear. I decided not to make that obvious though it was blatantly obvious since my torso had no cover anymore so my bra was obvious, I noticed Percy glance at my boobs for a millisecond he looked back at my face like nothing happened. 

I decide that since I was already caught I decided to act like it wasn’t a big deal. 

I ordered him to leave my room so I can shower and get ready. He nods but not before leaving a small flask on the table. I knew what it was and found it ironic he put a hangover cure in a small flask more commonly used to hide booze.

“Whats in it?” I ask. He looks at me and shakes his head. 

“If I told you, you wouldn’t drink it.” He responds walking out of my room. I unlatch the hatch to the flask and take a sniff, it smelt awful absolutely awful. I cringed and chugged down the cure. 

I couldn’t tell you what it tasted like because it tasted like everything and nothing at the same time. It was disgusting and chunky, I nearly puked after taking it, in fact I did puke the moment I hit the bathroom, thankfully the puking wasn’t to bad, after I was done puking I quickly through of my underwear and bra and walked into the shower, the shower was warm and cozy but also ridiculously loud. After awhile the noise got quite, and my head started getting clearer, it hurt less but I still felt like shit though nowhere near as bad. 

After my shower and quickly dried myself, and got changed into an AC/DC short sleeved shirt my cut jeans and leather jacket, I don’t wear make up or jewellery except a ring, a metal ring that I left my on my right hand, it was a simple piece of metal with a small spear shape with a purple gem In the place of the blade in the spear, it was small and didn’t take up to much room, but the ring was a gift from my dad, after… after the incident. 

I put the ring on and left my room, the light hurt a little but I managed to power through the pain, I passed Jason's room and reminded myself to kill him for giving Percy the spare key I gave him. I walked to the stairs and walk down the four flights of stairs, 

When I got down I saw three kids. Percy and two kids, one was a young boy, he looked like he saw a lot of shit and he couldn’t process it all, A look I’m used to seeing in this place. He was standing next to a girl who looked slightly older then him, they both looked similar so I assumed they were siblings, 

“Nico, Bianca! This is Thalia, she’ll be your second guide and Bianca’s mentor type person for the first few weeks your here.” Percy introduced me. 

‘Shit’ I say in my head. I spent so much time dreading this I didn’t realise that I would be looking after someone myself. Normally Percy would take Nico and I would take Bianca and we’d go our separate ways, but I know what’s it’s like to come to the place with your younger sibling. I’m glad Percy and I are sticking together, let the two be next to each other during all this. 

“Hey, happy to help you guys. Should we begin at the classes or the Cafe.” I ask Percy after acknowledging Bianca and Nico’s existence. 

“I’d say Cafe is a good place, we might be able to get breakfast then.” Percy said. I nod and we start leading the way. 

We spent most of the day bringing the kids all around the Camp and the classes, I introduced them to the guards, Nico called them Harpies, I have no idea why but apparently they made both his and Bianca’s life hell when they got here. I rolled my eyes, the guards are hand picked by Mr D, so yeah they’re dicks. 

But I did like the name Harpies. 

By the time curfew was called myself and Percy walked back to the dorms with Bianca and Nico, they were a floor lower then us so they got off the stairs before us.

Myself and Percy walked to our rooms which faced each other.

“Well that was fun.” I say unlocking my door, and opening it Percy opened his as well but did not enter it I couldn’t see in due to it being pitch black in there, the blinds and curtain were down, and this guy gave out to me for not opening my blinds.

“Yeah it was, I’m glad we did it.” Percy said.

“I thought you would suck at it, but you were surprisingly good.” I compliment, credit where credits due he did good, he talked and explained even cracked some jokes, really made the kids seem comfortable.

“Why thank you, you didn’t do so bad yourself.” Percy compliments.

“Surprisingly I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow.” I say stepping into my room. 

“Same, it was really fun, it was also a decent amount of exercise.” Percy added. It was true we walked all around camp, my fitness tracker said something like fifteen thousand steps and never mind the hill we had to climb, we had to bring the kids up to Chiron in the big house so we had to climb this fucking huge ass hill we call Camp Half Blood Hill.

“Well goodnight then.” I say about to close my door, Percy turned his bedroom light on still looking at me, I was shocked to see our group of friends behind him under a SURPRISE! banner. 

Percy looked at my shocked face in confusion and turned around. He choked on air when he saw the gang, all their faces in a mix of horror and humour. 

“That was fun?” Jason repeated in search of context. 

“Thought you would suck?” Hazel began

“Surprisingly good?” Finished Frank. 

By now I had walked into his room fully while he went pale. 

“A decent amount of exercise?” Piper quoted in confusion. 

“Ok, Explain!” Leo said with a smile plastered on his face. 

I was kind of confused of what they meant and why Jason looked a little pissed of, but also accomplished. Thats when I repeated what they said in my head, then took out the context in which I knew the sentences meant, and realised what they thought we were talking about. 

So me and Percy spent the next ten or twenty minutes explain what we were doing and what we meant, I mean I’m surprised I even had to explain myself, with these people I built I rep now all of sudden they’ll think I’ll act on a girlish crush, as if.

After we explain and everything settles down we begin with the actual surprise birthday party, apparently they took it upon them selfs to throw a surprise party a week before Percy’s birthday. 

The party extends all through out the fourth flooring everyones room, except my own since I had no idea this was happening. I opened my door to my room and let the party leak in, we had a lot of fun celebrating and Piper and Frank started drinking, Leo drank as well I refused to touch the stuff, just looking at it brought back the pain in my head and the taste of puke in mouth. 

We celebrated all night until we got warnings from the newly named Harpies to quite down or we’ll all be in ‘big trouble’ we decided to just call it a night, and all went to bed, we slept like the dead, I’m positive that if the end of the world happened right now I wouldn’t wake up. 

———————————————————————————  
Percy’s PoV ( Six days later)

Nico was surprisingly good at this whole camp life, I was titled his mentor. For the first few months, I had a mentor as well, her name was Thalia and she was no where near as good as me at this. 

I can’t take all the credit, Nico was so enthusiastic about this place, he loved it here, though that was just during the moments where he aloud himself to be happy which for a fifteen year old kid isn’t often

As his Mentor I was given permission to view his file, (with his permission of course). Nico has a seriously bad case of PTSD I was not made aware of Bianca’s, Thalia never told me. I’d assume they were similar since the cause of Nico’s PTSD was the death of their mother. 

Their mother died in a freak accident, truthfully the file didn’t cover in full depth but from I can piece together there was either a fire or a gas leak that lead to an explosion, either way Bianca and Nico were out for a walk and when they came back they saw their whole house on fire, apparently the fire had only started because from what I read, they could still hear their mother, screaming being burnt alive. 

That would fuck up anyone, I’m just glad they were sent here so they can get the help they need. 

Apparently that happened six months ago, they stayed with their father for a little while but after Nico had his first panic attack at a charity event his father was throwing they were sent here. I think Bianca showed symptoms as well but once again I’m not made aware of it. 

Myself and Nico walked around camp again, I was taking him class to class so he could keep up with the changing schedule and huge area. 

“So just to be clear, the horses are nice?” Nico asked as we walked to his first Horse riding lesson. 

“Yes Nico, and to be honest you probably won’t even get on one today, so don’t worry.” I say trying to calm him down. He seemed to calm a little but his hands were still going haywire, he looked all over the area, he was looking at people keeping his head down, like he normally does, maybe that's his anxiety. 

“Sorry Percy, it’s just, Horses don’t like me.” Nico explained. I smiled warmly trying to keep him positive, which is very difficult to do, where I’m optimistic and try to be fun, Nico is the opposite, he tends to lean on pessimism and tends to ignore everyone. 

“Have you made any friends yet?” I ask trying to change the subject. Nico wasn’t social which I don’t blame him for, but Bianca informed he never really was, she said he used to be happy all the time but was never to outgoing. 

“As if!” Nico said a little frustrated, he seemed to hesitate for a little before talking again. 

“Actually there was this one guy, his name’s Will, he’s really nice.” Nico said. I smiled, I know Will, he is a good kid, came in for a serious case of Impostor Syndrome, he doubts everything about himself constantly, his skills, achievements etc. 

“Thats great Nico, I’m glad to hear it.” I say patting him on the back. He was about to say something else when we were interrupted by the Stoll Brothers. 

They stood up on the cafeteria table and announced to the room full of kids and teens that they have a magic trick to perform. 

We all gathered around a little, Nico looked curious about the trick, like most newbies in this place the Stolls had in a span of five seconds introduced them selfs to Nico and Bianca, stole my watch and hit on both Bianca and Thalia. Safe to say I got my watch back and they were left legging it as I chased them down the Pier. 

Nico looked at the brothers as they waved their hands in the air. 

“Gather around young bloods, don’t we have a treat for you on this fine August afternoon.” Conner said waving a small tiny black object in his hands. 

“Yes yes, quite a treat for you and for all.” Travis said holding a can of… hairspray?

Sadly in my humorous mood I failed to notice what the trick actually was, but Thalia was on point as she approached behind us and gently whispered in my ear. 

“Lighter plus hairspray equals homemade flame thrower.” She said quietly so Nico and Bianca didn’t hear though I’m assuming Bianca knew what was happening already because she was pushing Nico away though he was asking why, I decided to go as well trying to get both Nico and Bianca out of the area quickly. 

To late. 

The Stolls released their magic trick and even though Nico’s back was turned from the scene the familiar sound of flames dancing in the air was unmistakable. Nico turned and saw the flames dancing in the air and the Stolls danced around throwing flames into the air. 

Nico was frozen, he started breathing rapidly as sweat rolled of his head, his eyes seemed to dart all around but also remain focused on the fire. 

“Nico?” Bianca asked. Nico didn’t respond, his hands started twitching a lot. Thalia seemed to want to distance herself from Nico, which just confused me. Bianca had no idea how to help, so it was up to me. 

Since Nico has PTSD and I’m his mentor I was thought what to do in this exact emergency. 

“Ok, Bianca, go get Chiron, he’s in the big house, Thalia can you get the Stolls to stop. Move slowly avoid sudden movements.” They did as I asked Thalia seemed upset but I’d guess her hitting the Stolls would be considered sudden movement. 

“Ok Nico, I want you to remember something.” I start kneeling next to him still in his eyes sight but moving as slow as I can.

“I want you to remember your here in Camp, not back there, ok? Your here in Camp.” I start. First step, remind him that what he’s seeing a flashback. He didn’t seem to change but his. Breathing got a little better. I noticed Thalia got the Stolls to stop, unfortunately that brought attention to Nico, but Thalia was very quick making the crowd slowly disperse. Since the fire and crowd were gone I could go onto the next step. 

“Ok Nico, I want you to look around, you can see we are at camp, can you look around for me?” I ask. Second step, show them they are in a safe environment, show them that it’s in their head.

“Ok Nico, did you look around?” noticed his eyes dart around the area a bit more calm then what they were. He nodded slowly, his head only moved about an inch. Ok next step. 

“Nico, I now need you to take deep breaths, can you follow my movements?” I ask, once again he nods slightly. 

I loudly breath in, and so does he, I breath out slowly and so does he, after awhile he got the routine and I stopped. 

“Ok, Nico, how are you feeling?” I ask hoping I did a good job, Thalia was standing off in the distance just watching. 

He nodded once or twice, before slowly turning to face me. 

“I-I’m g-good, I t-think.” He said slowly still taking slow steady breaths. Thalia approached smiling, behind was Chiron and Bianca running over to us. A few Harpies behind them. 

They all slowed down when the got closer, but when it was clear that he was calm again Chiron approached. 

“Nico, are you ok?” He asked. Nico didn’t answer, but a tear rolled down his cheek, after that a flood of tears fell down from his eyes, Chiron knelt down and tried to comfort the kid. He did a good job at calming him down, Chiron decided Nico was done with his lessons for the week and took him to the big house so he could relax and talk to one of the many councillors.

Bianca tried to follow but Nico didn’t want her to, he wanted to be alone. She reluctantly agreed. Chiron gave them both the week off. 

Nico walked off and Bianca went back to the dorms. I noticed that Bianca didn’t panic in fact she was relatively calm, I really thought it was PTSD, but evidently it wasn’t or maybe that wasn’t her trigger. 

When Bianca was out of ear shot myself and Thalia started talking. 

“You did good.” Thalia said smiling at me almost sounding proud. 

“Thanks!” I say I was rather happy with myself, that was the first time I had to help Nico with an attack, it surprised me to learn Bianca had no idea how to help. 

“Can I tell you something?” Thalia asked. The two of us started walking back to the dorms. Myself and Thalia are annulled from classes while we take care of Nico and Bianca. 

She seemed worried, almost scared, Thalia was never like that. 

“Sure, of course, you can tell me anything” I say placing my hand on her shoulder. 

She took a deep breath. 

“My therapist said it was time to talk to someone other then her in order to ‘move on’.” Thalia started. We stopped walking, we were directly under a huge oak tree that covered us in a shadow. Thankfully today was a bright and sunny day so we both sat under the tree out of the way of all other walkers and out of ear shot. 

“Before I tell you, I want you to know that besides Jason and my therapist you’ll be the only other person to know. I don’t even speak about it in group therapy.” Thalia said. I nodded my head in understanding and held her hand. 

“It’s PTSD with a mix of depression and severe anxiety. My conditions thats what they are.” She confessed. She seemed stressed, and worried and sad. Truthfully I had no idea how to respond, I mean Thalia told no one besides Jason her condition, but it made more sense now. 

The Panic Attack she had all those days ago. And her reaction to Nico’s attack. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that’s what you’ve been going through all this time.” I say. She smiles a little, but tries to carry on. 

“I want to tell you, it’s just- it’s just, hard to talk about.” She began. 

“You don’t need to, I understand.” Percy said gripping her hand tighter. She smiles lightly I could see tears in her eyes. But she seemed determined to continue on. 

“There was a guy, I used to love him. His name was Luke Castellion, he was the first boy I ever cared about. Then-then… my mother she… she got high and-.” Thalia was interrupted by Chiron running up to us. I was pissed that Thalia got interrupted in a moment like this but the look in his face nearly calmed me down. so I had to ask. 

“Chiron, what’s wrong?”

—————————————————

A/N. Ok so I got a little carried away with this chapter so I wrote waaaaaay more then usual, so instead of having one chapter with like eight thousand words I’ve split them into two, which if you ask me is much easier. Also a quick apologie for the late updates things have been hectic here and with school closing down I now HAVE to attend an online schooling system instead of just not going. 

It’ll probably take me awhile before I can publish chapter seven because I have like three maybe four other stores I’m updating so I’m kinda just flipping a coin and seeing which ones to update. 

I hope to update this soon though, but I know thats being optimistic, but my school is giving us a break this week due to most of the students getting jobs during COVID. So I should have more time. 

Thanks for reading and enjoy chapter six.


	6. Chapter six

**——————————** **Thalia’s PoV** **——————————**

Its been a few hours now and the search party was tired and some of them were lost as well.

To catch you up, after The Harpies left with Nico they guided him to the big house, but unfortunately they didn’t keep him secure, which I can’t blame them for, he was only a little kid they underestimated how fast he was.

As soon as they were out of eyesight Nico legged it into the woods which was probably the closest place he could see, I doubt he wanted to get lost in the woods, but he was too young and most of the time no one is aloud to go into the woods with out a ranger or Artemis.

Speaking of Rangers I noticed Artemis talking to the head honcho himself, not going to lie he’s hot, blond hair, a pair of hiking pants and a rangers vest which was basically a tank top revealing his quite muscular body. I decide to approach the two adults.

“Are you sure you can’t spear anymore troops Brother?” Artemis asked.

“I’m sorry sister, the troops I sent are reporting nothing, I can’t risk taking all my men out when the rangers should be out making sure no more poachers get into the woods.” He explained.

Brother, sister, they’re related!? They look so different. Artemis had black straight hair and pale moon like skin, while Ranger Apollo had tanned skin and blond hair. Even their skin was different, Apollos was smooth, while Artemis had freckles all over her cheeks and going over her nose slightly.

“Artemis, Apollo, please forgive the intrusion but Artemis requested an update from the east.” I say, I was actually quite nervous, I haven’t got the faintest clue as to why.

“Yes, Thalia, right?” Apollo guessed. When I nodded my head he smiled his perfect white teeth.

“Ok then, Thalia give Arty and myself the update.” Apollo requested. For some reason my throat was actually quite dry, but I managed to talk.

“Percy explained that they have had no luck, the people he has just aren’t equipped, for something like this, Only Leo and the rangers have actual experience hiking this far. And the Rangers are spending more time saving the searchers then actually searching.” I say, Artemis looked upset.

“They sent the entire group ten with Percy and Leo!” Artemis said in disbelief.

“I’m sorry, group ten?” I ask. I’ve never heard of that name before.

“A group I have, I’ve meant to have taking them on close to fifteen hikes by now, but thanks to them being temperamental on how they look and their germaphobia I took them hiking once, and it lasted less then ten minutes. They are the most inexperienced hikers around, and never mind with Drew there-.” She stopped her self before she finished probably realising she was ranting.

“Wait what’s wrong with Drew?” I ask.

Drew Tanaka, I do believe her issue is she’s fucking conceited, she’s one of the few who’s here for not a mental issue but a personality anomaly, she’s also slightly OCD. She feels entitled to everything and everyone. Last time I met Drew was when Me, Hazel and Piper got into a fight with her and her cronies.

From what Piper told me, herself and Jason were chatting in the hallway after having lunch somewhere else then out of nowhere Drew walked out of her dorm walked upstairs and just grabbed Jason and kissed him right infront of Piper, apparently the kissed lasted a second before Jason pushed her off but Piper was on a warpath.

There was also a time Jason lost his memories for a few hours while myself and Piper were out hiking and the boys were nowhere to be seen. And then Drew got her claws in him. They were half way through making out before his memories came back. Which to be honest feels illegal to me.

Well after that and Jason did the mature and right thing and told Piper what happened, well she was pissed very pissed and upset. So Piper decided to mark her territory, the hickeys lasted days and we all wouldn’t let Jason hear the end of it.

But then myself, Hazel and Piper got into a huge fight with Drew, it ended with Piper bitch slapping her and sense Piper purposely did her nails for the first time ever for this specific move, her nails cut her cheek leaving a very obvious red mark across the left side of Drews perfect face.

Piper was heavily punished but so was Drew, for ’near’ illegal actions. Like I mean he had no memories and she took advantage of it he basically blacked out. The sad part is if the rolled were reversed and it was a guy doing that to a girl the repercussions would be jail for life, hey I’m a girl but even I think it can be a double standard sometimes, sometimes.

Anyway back to the conversation.

“Where is Drew?” I ask after my previous question went unanswered.

“She’s on Percy’s team apparently. At least someones having a good time.” Artemis muttered the last part.

“Why would she be enjoying this?” I ask Drew hated getting dirty, well in a literal sense, even I don’t want to know what that girl thinks.

“Well what we do instead of hike is talk… girl talk, and apparently Drew has dibs on Percy, who she’s convinced keeps giving her ‘fuck me eyes’ as she says. So at least she gets to see Percy sweat.” Artemis said.

“Artemis, thats considered a therapy council if your talking, it’s meant to be confidential.” Apollo started, he was probably going to continue but his radio went off.

“Yes, Leo what is it?” He says and walks out of earshot.

“Yeah, but I feel like you needed to know, you have another challenger in the ring, Thalia.” Artemis says staring right at me before walking off after Apollo.

She’s my favourite person here, Artemis is just the best.

Ok so that whore is next to Percy, that pisses me off. Why does that piss me off- agh fuck it I like the guy, I like him a lot, he’s smart, he’s funny, he’s perfect. I even tried telling him about Luke. Shit, if that bitch gets her claws in him, I’m going to gauge her eyes out with her own fake ass nails.

I walk over to Piper.

“Hey, Thals what’s up?” She says, she was standing next to Jason.

“Fine! You were both right, I like him! Ok I like him now Piper I need your help to get to him.” I say. Piper and Jason both had those shit eating grins on their faces.

“Why do you need help?’ Piper asked. I was hoping she was going to ask that.

“I’ve been informed he’s been paired with a bitch who wants him. You might of hear of her, Drew Tanaka.” I barley finished the name before Piper had the biggest scowl on her face and Jason took a step back.

“Ok, I’ll help, but you should know this bitch probably won’t be leaving these woods.” Piper began.

“Fine by me! Lets just go.” I say grabbing my back and declaring Jason as the new leader of search party west, after all we are still looking for a kid.

**———————————————————————————————————**

**Percy’s PoV**

This has been a nightmare from the moment I was put in this team.

For one, besides Leo, no one knew how to Hike I mean it’s walking on rocks, how hard is that! I swear someone screamed out in pain so I ran to help him and when I got there which required me to run down a steep hill. It turned out he stepped in mud and it leaked into his skin.

I’m searching for a sixteen year old kid in the woods with the most high maintenance people possibly in the world.

Besides me and Leo, Will was the only one trying to find Nico.

It would also help but The rangers have to keep helping the those kids, one guy fell down a six foot deep hole in the floor because he was complaining about a tree branch scraping his arm.

The six foot drop ended up breaking one of his legs, some how and it took three rangers to get him out and then it took four rangers including the three that got him out to carry him on a stretcher back to the camp.

Theres this one girl who has tripped, been pushed back and just in general been a nuisance just to try and keep up with me, I think her name was Drew. And I’m not a mean person, angry maybe, but not mean. But I swear to what ever god is out there if I hear her voice one more time, I’m going to push her down a hill. I don’t know how one voice has the ability to have some many different pitches, I swear every time she starts a new sentence her voice raises an octave.

I was loosing my cool but I had to keep my cool, if Leo and Will weren’t there I think I would of lost it by now.

Plus we’ve found nothing, no clues no anything.

I’m also stressing because I feel like Nico was my responsibility, I don’t even know why he ran, his sister was here and he knows no one would judge him for his attack or make fun of him for this no one would.

I decide to walk forward ahead of both Leo and Will, and to hide from Drew who was swiftly becoming a problem.

My mind wandered to what Thalia said, what she tried to tell me, I wish I had time to hear the rest but I suppose she’d tell me later, but who was the Luke she was talking about, and why did hearing she loves some other guy I’ve never met make me both angry and upset, it’s not like I have right to feel jealous, she’s not my girlfriend, she’s just one of my closest friends, like would she care if I told her me and Annabeth dated for like one summer, I doubt it.

Fortunately for us Iwas jolted out of though by something shiny on the floor, I picked it up, it was a pen, a camp pen and on the side of it was written.

_Property of Nico Di Angelo_

“Leo, over here! I found something!” I call out Leo ran towards me and looked at the pen.

“Ok, we know he came here, I’ll radio Apollo.” Leo says and wandered off. I look around to see if I could find anything else, but I came up empty.

“How about there, the bushes have been pushed back.” Will said pointing to a bunch of bushes.

“How can you tell?” I ask the teen.

“Well if you look at the bush you can see the right side perfectly even with the right tree but the left side is pushed behind the tree meaning someone pushed past that specific side of the bush, I mean it could be an animal but with the pen here it’s worth a look at least.” Will said. I looked at what he was pointing at, he was right!

“Leo, get over here.” I say.

Leo walks over looking curious.

“Whats up Perce?’ He asked. I point to the bush and explain our theory. He nods his head in understanding.

“Ok, Will take the others down towards the stream, Piper and Thalia are on their way here to help us, me and Percy will search a quick two kilometre radius of this area, we’ll catch up in twenty, ok? Oh and do try and keep Thalia and Piper away from Drew.” Leo says and begins to walk into the woods. Will ran off to get the other and lead them about five kilometres back down to the stream. I would’ve taken rangers but they were all gone.

Leo and I walk two Kilometres forward and stopped, we saw nothing, heard nothing, I called Nico’s name a few times and got no reply. We walk right two kilometres and got there same reaction and then walked four kilometres in the opposite direction.

I was beginning to lose hope on Nico when we heard a branch break behind us.

We both quickly turned and saw nothing, we looked down and below us was a tiny dog playing with a stick he looked like a puppy.

I was kind of confused, I looked at Leo who seemed to be a lot worse of then me. He was slightly walking back pushing me back as well.

“Leo what the hel-.” I was interrupted with Leo shushing me.

“Coyote pup, lets hope it’s a male.” Leo says.

“There’s coyotes in Long Island?” I ask surprised, it’s not often I here of dangerous animals especially animals inside the compound.

“Yeah, since 2009 and I think, though if it’s a female then she’ll be with a pack but if its a male he could be alone.”

“Its a pup, why would he be hunting?”

“Coyotes give birth to pups around the begging of April or the end of March, females stay in the pack but after five to six months the males leave the pack to start their own.” Leo explained.

I did the math in my head, if your optimistic and assume it was the end of march and the pup left at the five month mark and not the sixth and its a male then we’d be safe, I mean it’s a puppy coyote chewing on a stick not even caring were here. 

“And lets just say we’re not lucky?” I ask.

“Well if its a male who hasn’t left the pack yet we’d be expecting a protective mother and father, if its a girl we’re expecting a pack of Coyotes.”

Look im not a religious person, but if there was someone or something out there I more then likely prayed to them right there and then.

The pup looked up from it’s stick and looked us dead in the eyes, the pups tail was wagging, at first glance this would just look like two muscular dudes scared of a puppy dog.

The dog ran off into the woods and we breathe a sigh of relieve,

Until we heard the puppy cry out.

We ran to investigate (because we’re dumb) and see a small hole in the ground, it’s a decent sized hole, I’d assume a cave entrence. At the bottom of this cave I saw the puppy try and get up but fall back down again.

Next to him I see… Nico! He seemed to be out cold and I think I could see a gash on his head, the fall is about twenty feet, if I was careful and climbed down a good bit I could probably survive the fall, the issue was getting back up.

Me and Leo seemed to scoot closer to see if there was anyway to climb back up, but no, the hole it self was about seven feet, then the wall stops and you fall the remains twelve or thirteen feet.

We didn’t have time to run back out and get help, it was nearly dark, I could see the sun setting as we thought on how to get Nico out of there.

We couldn’t leave them down there for the night but we also couldn’t lead a bunch of people back here in pitch black, and it would be a bad idea to leave one person here incase the pup was a female or a younger male.

“Radio Apollo, get him and the rangers here, I’m going to climb down and see what I can do to help Nico and the pup, ok?” I say standing up.

“No, I know what I’m doing, I can treat them for injuries, you radio them I’ll climb down there.” Leo argued.

“No, dude, i’m more built then you are, I can take the fall damage, you can’t, you’ll end up stuck like them.”

“Ok then we’re a dilemma then, you can get down there but can’t help them and I can help them but can’t get down there!” Leo summed up.

I thought for a second, Nico was in no condition to be wasting this much time, but I don’t know how to help him.

“Ok, you radio Apollo and the rest, I’ll climb down, then after that you climb down and I’ll catch you, I should be able to break your fall enough to not injure yourself, then you can help them, the only issue is we’ll have to rely that they’ll find us, otherwise we’re all stuck down there.” I say pitching my idea.

Leo didn’t appear happy but knew it was the best idea we had.

“Fine, I’ll radio them tell them what we have to do and urge them to hurry the fuck up.” Leo said walking away to call the team. I take a deep breath and begin my descend.

I managed to climb down with little issue but I knew I was still in danger, If I suddenly lost my grip then I was fucked.

When I reached the end of the wall I looked up to see Leo looking over me. I took a deep breath knowing this was going to hurt. I let go, I landed into a roll securing my position but it still hurt like fuck. I took a breather for a few seconds, I quickly run over to Nico and check his head, it doesn’t seem to bad but he’s probably hungry.

The Pup limped over to me, from what I could see the pup hurt his leg badly, he couldn’t really walk. His leg was swollen and he looked really hurt. I felt really bad for the poor thing, truthfully even if Nico wasn’t down here I would be doing this to save the Coyote.

I go over to the hole and signal Leo to start climbing, he nods and agrees I went at the bottom, when he got down he looked down.

“Ok, try to aim for me.” I instruct.

I swear I could hear the eye roll.

Leo jumped down and thankfully I caught him, you know for a small enough guy he was surprisingly heavy.

When we were both down Leo instantly checked on Nico, he came to the same conclusion of me, the kid probably just hit his head on the way down, though he looked pretty bad, but nothing a day or two in the infirmary wouldn’t fix.

Afterwards he checked on the pup, he concluded the coyote twisted it’s leg, Leo told me to try and wake Nico while he did what he had to to save the pup.

I walked over to Nico and gently tapped his shoulder trying to wake him, I was unsuccessful the first few times but I eventually managed to wake him, he woke up looking confused, he scanned the room and was probably quite confused to find myself and Leo down here with a dog.

“W-what? What’s going on?” Nico asked through grunts of pain. Once he was fully awake he tried to stand. He probably felt like shit trying to stand up that quick.

After he sat back down, holding his head in pain, Leo was helping the coyote stand up.

I sat down next to Nico, who stopped trying to get up, Leo managed to help the dog with a home made splint using wires and chop sticks that he had in his bag for some reason.

We all got comfortable in the cave and hoped that Apollo and the rest got here quickly.

We sat and talked for what felt like hours, the Coyote pup managed to settle next to Leo, the pup seemed to take a liking to the elfish boy.

“Guess, the dog is coming with us?” Nico asked. I chuckled a little and Leo looked amused.

“Well, if it wants to then great, but Dionysius cannot find out, he’d kill me and the dog.” Leo said making us promise that if the pup wanted to go with them we’d keep it a secret.

To me I was pretty positive the pup was coming back with us.

“What would you name him?” I asked. Leo looked at me for a second before looking back at the sleeping Coyote.

“I like, Festus.” Leo said smiling at the puppy. I smiled at the name, Latin for joyful or happy.

“Isn’t that the name of something to do with pregnancies?” Nico asked. We had a quick laugh before explaining the difference between Festus and Fetus, when he found out he used the whole head injury excuse.

We sat in a little bit more silence, I noticed the sun was long gone, I checked my watch and it was 23:59. I smiled lightly and count down with the minute timer on my watch in my head.

Once I see it hit midnight I smile even more, Happy Birthday Percy. The interesting thing is, I was surprised by my happiness, I should be home with my loving family and friends but instead im stuck in a cave with Nico, Leo and Festus, and yet, I’m happier then I would be if I went home, maybe it’s because I did a good deed and found the kid, or maybe because these people, even Nico and Leo, were like family to me by now, and Thalia, well getting to see her is a gift all by it’s self.

I notice Leo looking at his watch as well, he looked over to me and whistled at a high pitch. I looked over at him fully and he gave me his signature toothed grin.

“Yo dude, happy birthday!” Leo said. I smile warmly and thank him. Nico looked a little sad at this news though.

“Perce, I’m so sorry, I doubt this is how you want to be spending your birthday! I’m sorry I ran, I just keep fucking everything up!” Nico exclaimed coldly. I instantly sat up and moved next to him again.

“Nico, none of this is your fault, and truthfully this is actually been an entertaining day. Nico, you fucked nothing up, your a good kid trust me, if I for one second thought this was your fault I would have already lashed out at you by now, you know I have no filter when I’m mad!” I say trying to get the kid to cut himself some slack.

He nods his head but still looks upset. Before I could do anything more we hear a voice call out our names. It’s Piper!

I run to the entrance of the hole and scream up at them.

“Down here!”

I hear muffled voices and foot steps running across the mud. I look up to see lightning blue eyes staring back at me.

“Kelp head! What are you doing down a hole!?” Thalia asked more rhetorically then anything else.

“Oh you know, just saving a kids life! Nothing to much!” I slightly brag. She flashes her perfect teeth as she smiles at my comment. Our peace was cut short by Apollo kneeling next to her.

“Percy, is everyone ok?” Apollo asked.

“No, Nico hit his head hard, I think he needs to be checked out and I would count to much on him climbing a rope.” I say. A get a small rock thrown at me in retaliation to the comment.

“Ok, myself and Artemis will head down there to check on him and bring you guys up, ok?” Apollo said laying out a solid plan.

“Perfect Apollo, just hurry up, it’s cold down here.” I say slightly joking. Truthfully it was freezing down here we’re just to stubborn to admit it’s cold.

Apollo nods and goes off the get Artemis.

Twenty minutes later, Leo, Myself and Nico were out of the hole and Nico was put on a stretcher. His head was pretty banged up but they think me and Leo getting down there to help him could of saved him from serious harm.

Within an hour and a half we were back at Camp, the whole crowd was ecstatic that we were all back and with Nico in tow.

The Stolls made sure he got back to the infirmary as safe as possible, they also tended to his every need, they ended up feeling responsible for Nico running so they wanted to make it up to him. I don’t blame the Stolls they had no idea that it would hurt Nico, but it was still quite dumb that they made a flame thrower in the first place so no one really tried to ease their conscious just yet.

Everyone decided to head back to their rooms, Leo even got a peck on the cheek from Calypso, which for her was huge improvement. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to date someone and for it to be impossible for you to be next to her, like she was on stuck on an island you could never find.

Myself and Thalia decided to walk around the camp for a little bit longer. We walked towards the pier and looked out at the moon shining bright, I checked my watch and saw it was nearly half one in the morning.

Thalia noticed my watch as well.

“Happy Birthday, Kelp Head.”

“Thanks…. Pinecone face.” I say making the name up on the spot.

“Oh, no you didn’t!” Thalia said laughing a little at the name.

“I’m not that creative, ok!?” I laugh as well.

“No, not ok! You have got to come up with a better one then that!”

“Air Head?”

“Nope”

“Sap lover?”

“Hell no!”

“Thunder thighs?”

“I’m going to hit you, Jackson!”

“Princess?”

This time she did actually hit me.

“Then Pinecone face it is!” I say triumphantly. She sighs and laughs a little but more.

I look at her for a second, our eyes match perfectly. I couldn’t help but notice just how beautiful she was with the moon lighting down on her skin and her bright neon lightning like eyes.

For a moment, just one moment, the whole world was peaceful, wars stopped, arguments stopped, hunger, crime, they all stopped and the world was quite and for just one second, it was just me and her. So I leaned in, and so did she.

The sensation of her lips on mine was so foreign, It felt good, it felt right, like my lips were specially made to match hers. I placed my hand on her waist and the other on her face, she did the same.

We were eventually forced to separate from each other due to needing air.

We stood there for a moment, silently catching our breath.

I was surprised she kissed me back, and not in a bad way, she was actually a really good kisser.

I looked at her a small smile formed on her lips. I smiled as well

I stood closer to her, she wrapped her arms around my neck and I put my hands on her waist. We looked into each others eyes. Before she leaned forward capturing my lips once again.

I quickly return the kiss. It was a short kiss only lasting a short time. After we separated we stayed exactly where we were, her arms around my neck and my hands on her waist. And through all that I could hear her whisper slightly.

“Happy Birthday, Kelp Head.”


End file.
